Psalm 69. I'm not going to touch every
verse in this chapter, but the message in this chapter is a
substitutionary person and work of Jesus Christ for His elect,
His people. This psalm is clearly about Jesus
Christ. As I said earlier, it is quoted
about 16 times, probably more than any of the other Scriptures
in the New Testament. It's quoted from this psalm. Verses 1-4 we will see our substitute,
the man. We see the man. Jesus Christ
here in this portion of Scripture. Our substitute. One who took
our place before God. He took God's wrath. We can't
even begin to imagine what that is. The wrath of God against
sin. So what we will see here in verses
1-4 is our substitute pouring out his soul before God. As a man, he trusted in God to
save him. He trusted in God, just as you
and I are to trust in God. As a man, he trusted in God to
save him, to keep him, to bring him through it. He'd have said in Hebrews 5.7,
with strong cryings and tears, he offered up prayers and supplications
unto Him that was able to save him from death and was heard
in that he feared. Now in these verses, we can hear
the agony that he's going through. the deep, deep agony of the Lord
Jesus Christ bearing our sin. Now you and I who believe have
been given a sense, a measure of the guilt of our sins. That's what repentance is. When
God enables us to repent, we do feel in a measure the guilt
of sin. He felt it in its full measure. You and I cannot feel it in the
full measure of it. He did. He did. And so he says here in verse
1, the very first thing he says is, Save me! Save me! This is what I was saying in
meaning when I said he trusted in God. He trusted that man,
Jesus Christ, as a man trusted in God. And he said, Save me! The waters of trouble have flooded
into my soul. The waters have come in unto
my soul. He's not talking about just outward
trouble. He's talking about this trouble
coming in to his soul. being engulfed. You know, when
water comes over you, it engulfs you. And this trouble, this being
made sin, this dealing with the powers of darkness, He said,
they have just covered me like water. It's flooded into my soul. It's soul trouble. It's soul
trouble. And listen, I sink in deep mire. There's no standing in mire. He's speaking here when they
would put a prisoner in a pit. It was a well that had been dug
and it's maybe gone somewhat dry, but in the bottom of it,
it's wet and it's just nothing solid. It's mire. And that's
what our Lord came into. He came into this mire of sin
that you and I are. Not that if we live in it, it's
about us, but it's what we are. And He came into this mire of
sin and He says, Save me, for the waters have come into my
soul, and I sink. I sink in deep mire where there's
no standing. There's no standing in this mire.
But I tell you where there is standing, there's standing in
the grace of God on that rock, Jesus Christ. There is a standing
in Him. But anything short of Christ,
there's no standing. There's no standing in the day
of judgment when it comes, not if it comes, when it comes. There's no standing except on
the rock Christ Jesus. But here is our substitute. He's dealing with what I'm not
going to have to deal with. And He says that I'm so weary...
Look at verse 3, "...I am weary of my crying." He cried unto
God. As I said there in the earlier
part of it in Hebrews, with strong supplications and cryings, He
offered up prayers. He said, I'm weary of crying. Help me, help me, help me. That's why, you know, on the
cross, He said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why are you so far from the words
of my roaring? The reason being is He's suffering
for our sins. He's suffering what we ought
to suffer. He's taking my punishment, your
punishment. God forsook Him that He may not
forsake me. He literally forsook Him that
He will not forsake me and forsake you who believe. Will not be
forsaken. This is the promise in Hebrews. I will never, no never, no never
leave you. or forsake you." But he was forsaken. He says, the waters have flooded
into my soul, I'm sinking in this deep mire, I'm so weary
of my crying, and they that hate me are more than the hairs of
my head. More than the hairs of my head. The whole human race hated him. The whole human race doesn't
hate me, they don't even know me. But the whole human race
hates the God of this Bible. And the God of this Bible is
Jesus Christ. And He says, "...they that hate
Me are more than the hairs of My head." He faced trouble without,
and that soul trouble with it. Now listen, He felt their hatred. He felt the full measure of it.
But here's what's astounding to me. He felt the full measure
of my hatred to Him. Before He saved me and before
He saved you, you and I hated Him. And we proved it by our
works, by the things that we did, and the fact that we didn't
believe Him. We called God a liar. until He
saved us by His grace." Aren't you glad salvation is by grace?
There's not a soul in here to be saved. There's not a soul
on this earth to be saved. None of us will be saved. We
hated Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was and is the Christ
of this book. He was and is the most hated
person in existence. And that's not an overstatement.
That's not an overstatement. And why? Here's why. First of
all, because He's God. And we have a natural enmity
toward God. The natural mind is enmity with
God. They hated Him because He's holy. He's light. We are darkness. He said, you
will not come to the light lest your deeds be reproved. They hated Him because He exposed
them for who they were. They hated Him for it. He told
them the truth. You're of your father the devil.
I want the Lord to tell us the truth. Tell me the truth. You're
not going to be saved with a lie. God has never saved any person
under a lie. God didn't save me under a lie,
and then I came and learned the doctrines of grace. That's not
so. God saved me when I looked into
the face of Jesus Christ, and from Him I have learned the doctrines.
I've learned the truth. You learn the truth from the
truth. Our Lord was hated because He's
God, because He's holy, because He exposed therein our sinfulness. And He felt the full measure
of what ungodly hatred is. I've never felt the full measure
of hate. But He did. He felt it. And then notice here
in verse 4. They that hate Me without a cause."
That's quoted over in the New Testament. They hated Me without
a cause. They had no reason. What reason does anyone of this
human race have to hate God? What reason? We have no reason. I wrote this in a bulletin not
long ago. God had every reason to hate
Esau. Esau had no reason to hate God.
Everything Esau had... Esau became very wealthy. Everything
he had, God gave him. But God had every right to hate
Esau. He despised his birthright. He despised what God gave him.
But he says here in verse 4, "...they that hate me, And notice
it doesn't say those who hate it, it's those who hate me. They
hate me now. Listen, in hell they hate Him. They still hate
Him in hell. They don't love Him there. They
wouldn't believe Him there anymore. They believed Him here. It takes
a powerful work of God for a dead sinner like you and me to believe
Him. It takes the same power for God to save me and enable
me to believe as it took when God created the heavens and the
earth. In fact, and I'm just going to say this as an example,
when God created the heavens and the earth, there was no resistance.
He said, let there be light, there was light. But I tell you
what, whenever you and I heard the Gospel, our old nature, and
our old nature still to this day, resists, doesn't it? There's still a resistance. There's
still. Do you ever get disappointed?
Do you have plans to do something, and you get disappointed, you
get upset about it? That's nothing more than your old nature resisting
the will of God. That's what that is. He says here, "...they that hate
Me without a cause are more than the hairs of Mine head. They
that would destroy Me, be My enemies wrongfully, are mighty,
mighty. Then I restored that which I
took not away." I restored that which I took
not away. What did He restore here? Well, first of all, He restored
the glory of God. You and I can now see something
in a measure, and someday we'll see the full-blown measure of
it, but in a measure right now we can see something of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He's restored the glory of God.
And then He restored righteousness. Adam took it away. He restored
it. He restored to us righteousness. In Jesus Christ we are righteous. We are right with God. And then
He restored peace. Adam took away that peace. The
Lord Jesus Christ came into this world. He restored peace with
God. Does that mean anything to us?
To have peace with God? Then He restored fellowship. We can truly have fellowship
with God. God who is unapproachable, God
who is light, God who is inaccessible, we can now have access to the
throne of grace, to the presence of God, and we can have fellowship
with God. He restored that fellowship.
And then He restored life. Life. We have the life of God. In the soul we have the life
of God. Then He restored truth. Adam
lost away the truth and the life. Jesus Christ restored that. And then, listen, He restored
the image of God, which we lost in Adam. Sin has marred that
image. Marred that image. But that image
has been restored. Now are ye the sons of God. He restored the image of God. But you notice something here. And some people try to, some
that I've read, they really try to, they kind of like, They take
this verse and they apply these verses to Christ, and they get
to verse 5 and they kind of apply it to David, and not to Christ. "'O God, Thou
knowest my foolishness and my sins.'" And look over in the
margin of my Bible, my sins is my guiltiness. That's why I said, He felt and
knew my guilt. And I'm telling you, only God
can do that. When He was made to be sin for us, He felt the
guilt of our sins. It wasn't just a charge. You know, I think you know this,
I know this. If one of you murder somebody,
and I'm going to go down to the law, before the law, and I'm
going to take your place, I'm going to stand in your place, and I'm going to take the death
penalty, and I'm going to die in your place, would the law be satisfied? No,
it wouldn't. Because the actual guilty person
is still free. He goes free. He's guilty. He didn't get the punishment.
But I'm telling you this, in the substitutionary work of Christ,
my sins was completely transferred to Him. He became guilty. He stood before God's law as
me. God's law dealt with me in dealing
with Christ. That's how complete His substitutionary
work is. And that's why you and I can
go free. You know, there's a Scripture,
and I wish I'd have thought of it, but I didn't. But I'm going to have
to paraphrase a little bit. But there's two things that's
an abomination to God. One is for an innocent man to
be charged as guilty, and for a guilty man to be charged with
innocence, to be let go innocent. Scripture says that's an abomination
to God. Because God is just God. When He punished His Son, He
took our sins to Himself. And the law of God dealt with
us in dealing with Him. And now the law is satisfied.
As far as God's law is concerned, I died. I died in Christ when
He was crucified. I died. I was punished. I was
died. And now the law has nothing against
me. That's why it's impossible, it's impossible that Jesus Christ
died for every son of Adam. Because it would be double jeopardy.
If He died to put away the sins of every son of Adam, every son
of Adam is going to be saved. For God to be a just God, they
have to be saved. Oh God, He said, Thou knowest
My foolishness, My sins are not hid from Thee. He's a real substitute. He bore our sins in His body
on the tree. And in verse 6, listen to how
Christ prays for His people. Listen to how He prays for us. Let none who wait on Thee, O
Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for My sake. Let none of them
who wait on You, O God, be ashamed for My sake. Why? For my sake. Because they trust me. Because
they look to me. Because they believe me. Don't
let them be ashamed for my sake. You know why God's forgiven me
and you? For Christ's sake. That's why God forgives us. He
forgives us our sins for Christ's sake because He bore our sins. And for His sake, He forgives. Aren't you glad that that's how
it works? Because if he forgave me because I was, you know, I
live right, and I do right, and we don't even get it right. By
the time we get out of bed, we're already getting it wrong in our
thoughts, in our attitude. You get up on the wrong side,
you got up on the wrong side of the bed. No, that's just you. That's just
you. I thank God that salvation doesn't
depend on me. Forgiven for Christ's sake. Saved
for Christ's sake. That's what he's saying here.
Let none who wait on the Lord be ashamed for waiting, and listen,
none who look to Christ by faith will be confounded in the end.
You won't be ashamed. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the Gospel. He told Timothy, don't be ashamed
of the Gospel, nor of me. He's a prisoner. Don't be ashamed
of me or the gospel. I'm not ashamed of Jesus Christ. Those Pharisees and Sadducees,
they were ashamed of Him. They were ashamed of Him. We
know you, you're the carpenter's son. How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned? How knoweth this man letters,
having never been to our school? I mean, that's what they're saying. They were ashamed of Him. They
were ashamed of His family. They were ashamed of the way
He dressed. They were ashamed of His appearance. There's no
beauty that we should desire Him. Not that He was ugly, but
He was common. He looked like His disciples
looked. That's why Judas had to give
Him a kiss when they brought that army out there. He was so
identified with His disciples, Judas said, I'll have to point
Him out to you. That's how identified Jesus Christ is with us. Let none of them be ashamed or
confounded." And his prayer here is to the covenant God, the God
of Israel. And his prayer is for those who
wait on Him and those who seek, and they are one and the same.
Those who wait are the same ones who seek. They seek the Lord. The Apostle Paul said, that he
gloried in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't glory
in his achievements. He didn't glory in his education.
He didn't glory in his ancestry. He had some things he could glory
in before men. But he said, I don't glory in
these things. He didn't glory in the degrees he had. He sat
at one of the most brilliant men of his day and learned. He
said His feet grew up. But He said, here's what I glory
in. The cross. Christ crucified. I'm not ashamed
of that man that hung on that cross. I'm not ashamed of Him. I'm not ashamed of that Nazarene.
Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Well, one did. Jesus Christ. In verse 7, all that Christ did,
listen, He says here in verse 6, let them not be ashamed for
My sake, and let those that seek Thee, let them not be confounded
for My sake, O God of Israel, the covenant God, because for
Thy sake, He said, let them not be ashamed or confounded for
My sake. But now He's speaking here to the Father and His relationship
to the Father and the mission He was on here. Because for thy
sake I have borne reproach. I bear reproach, Father, for
your sake." They said, he said he's a son
of God. He's a blasphemer. They wanted to stone him. They
called him everything under the sun. They called him a wine-bibber,
a gluttonous man. I mean, it wouldn't matter what
he did. They was going to just, you know,
like children, name-calling all the time. But He says here, Father,
all that I have done, I have done for Your sake. I have done
this for Your glory, is what He is saying. I have done this
for Your glory, because for Thy sake I have borne reproach. The
only way for God to be a just God is Jesus Christ. The way. He is the way. The way
He came into this world, the way He took upon Him flesh, the
way He went about doing good, the way He obeyed the law, the
way He produced righteousness, the way He went to the cross,
the way He went to the grave, and the way He's gone back to
glory. He's glorified God in all of it. All of it. Now listen here in verse 8. He became a stranger to His brethren. His own family, the other brothers
and sisters that he had there in the house growing up with
him, he became a stranger to them. Peter said, I don't know him. Peter said that three times.
Three times he was given the opportunity to stand up for him. He said, I don't know him. I
don't know him. No one wanted to own Him. He
came into His own, and His own received Him not. He came into
His own creation, and they didn't even know Him. They didn't know
Him. He was despised and rejected
of men, there in Isaiah 53. But in all of this, He says in
verse 9, "...the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." That's
quoted, I think, over in John 2.17, when He turned over the
table of the money changers. He was taken up, listen, He was
taken up with His Father's glory, His honor is what He was taken
up with. He was taken up with the honor
of His Father, listen, so much that it consumed Him. I wouldn't
have thought it would consume us. I do, I wouldn't have thought
it would consume me. God's honor. The zeal of thine health has
eaten me up, it has consumed me. And then he speaks here in verses
10 and 12, as the man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief, because he says, when I wept, when I wept, Now,
listen, he didn't just shed some tears. When he wept, he wept.
He wept over Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how
often would I have gathered you together as a hen does gather
her brood, but you would not. He wept over Jerusalem. He was called a deceiver. He
was called a blasphemer. The town drunks made up songs
about him. That's what it says there. The
town drunks made up songs about him. They sit in the gate, they
speak against me, the leaders of the city, and I was the song
of the drunkards. The drunks made up songs about
me." That's how bad they thought of
him. Then verses 13-19, and I'm just
going to briefly touch on this, but it dawned on me after going
over this before coming down, I thought this, you reckon this
was his prayer in Gethsemane? In verse 13-19, But as for me,
my prayer is unto Thee, O Lord, in an acceptable and opportune
time. O God, in the multitude of Thy
mercy, hear me in the truth of Thy salvation. 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, not just a trickle here and there. We're not talking
ankle deep. Water flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow
me up. Don't let this drown me. And listen, and let not the pit,
the grave, the hole they put me in, shut her mouth upon me. Hear
me, O Lord, for Thy lovingkindness is good. In all His sufferings
He never, like Job, He never charged God with folly. And no
man suffered like this man suffered. All you that pass by, he said,
is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow? Turn unto me according to the
multitude that attend to me. Hide not your face, don't veil
your face from me." I was reading where a king, he would put a
veil in front of him. to where you couldn't see Him.
And He would only let certain people, His high ministers come
back there and talk to Him. He wouldn't let just any of His
servants come back there if He didn't want to see them. And
this is what He's alluding to. Don't put a veil up there and
keep me out. He's feeling what I feel. God
ought to keep me out. God ought to keep me and you
out. There ought to be a veil there that keeps us out. He's
feeling my guilt. He's feeling, listen, He feels
my shame. Because it says He despised the
shame. He feels it. Hide not thy face
from thy servant. You notice He didn't call Himself
a son here. He doesn't call Himself a son. He calls Himself a servant. A servant. For I'm in trouble. I'm in deep, deep, deep trouble.
You and I have never been in trouble like this. We're talking
about the wrath of God, about the fall on Him. I'm in deep
trouble. Draw nigh unto my soul, redeem
it, and deliver me, because my enemies thou hast known my reproach,
and my shame, and my dishonor. My adversaries are all... You
know, every one of my adversaries. God knows every one of your adversaries,
mine. They're the same as Christ. But
after I read that, I thought, This is probably his prayer in
Gethsemane. Go back and read that and you
think of him in the Garden of Gethsemane. That prayer would
fit that situation. He says in verse 20 and 21, Reproach
hath broken my heart. I read something here today that
was interesting. Reproach hath broken my heart. Now you and
I have had broken hearts. If God has saved us, He's broken
our hearts. We've had a broken heart. I was reading today, and
I didn't know this, but there is really a medical term for
this, a medical situation, that a person can be under such distress,
such sorrow, that their heart actually ruptures. That the heart actually ruptures,
that the stress can be so great, and so strong. And the person
that I read this from said, you know, we read where it says,
they pierced my hands and my feet, and that did happen. They
pierced my hands and my feet. He said it may be that his heart
ruptured under the distress of all the pain and the suffering. I don't know. But it is a medical
A thing that can happen under such distress. Reproach. Can you imagine that? Can you
imagine doing good to someone and all they do is reproach you
for it? You've treated them like a son. You've treated them so
well, and yet they turn around and spit in your face? That's
exactly what we did to our God. He said, it's broken my heart.
And it does break your heart when that happens. And he said, I was full of heaviness
over it. I looked for some to take pity.
I looked for somebody to take pity. But there was none. No one took
pity on me. No one. I look for comforters. You know, when you're sick, or
when you're hurting, or when you're going through a deep loss,
it's good to have comforters. He had zero. Zero comforters. The Father didn't even comfort
him at this time. He was left alone. All because of His love for me
and bearing my sins and you. I looked for comforters, but
I found none. Here's what I found. They gave
me gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to
drink." Now here's what's interesting. You want to talk about the accuracy
of the Bible? This is written hundreds and
hundreds of years before Christ was crucified. And what was given
to Him? This right here. This is what gives to gall, poison, and sour vinegar. That's what? Vinegar to drink. You know, sin,
He's bearing our sins in His body on the tree. Sin is a bitter,
bitter, bitter, bitter thing to Him. Now, man drinks iniquity
like water. There's pleasure in sin for a
season, not for Him. There is for us, but not for
Him. To Him, it's a very bitter thing. He's bearing our sins. This shows
Him drinking the bitterness of our sins. But it also just shows
the accuracy of God's work. All these hundred years later,
that's exactly what happened. And in verse 26, if they persecute
Him, listen, they persecute Him whom thou hast smitten. They're
persecuting Me. They whipped Him, they beat Him,
they put a crown of thorns on His head, but He says here, they're
persecuting Me. They're persecuting the one whom
you've smitten. You're the one doing the smiting. The Father smote Him for us.
It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. Your salvation, my salvation,
it was extremely costly. I mean extremely costly. It cost
him the blood of his veins, the blood that flowed through his
veins. It had to be shed. You couldn't stick a needle in
his arm and draw the blood out like you go to the hospital and
give blood. It had to come out in a very
painful way, because that's what you and I deserve. We deserve
punishment. Well, they persecute Him whom
thou hast smitten, and they talk, they gossip. They gossip. Can you imagine what the gossip
went on at the foot of that cross? Well, we may have some of it.
He saved others, Himself He cannot save. If He be the Son of God,
let Him come down. He had to listen to all that.
And that entered into His heart. He felt that to its fullest degree. No, they gossip to the grief
of those whom thou hast wounded. Notice who's doing the smiting
and the wounding here. I read it to you in Isaiah 53. He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our inequities. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. And thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin. The Lord Jesus Christ has called
He's our Passover Lamb. Behold, John said, the Lamb of
God which takes away the sin of the world. He's taken away
my sins. And I'll wind this up here. In verse 29, Christ anticipates
His exaltation in the midst of all His sorrows and all His sufferings. He says this, but I am poor and
sorrowful, Because that's what you and I are. You and I are
a bunch of poor, sorrowful people. I am poor and sorrowful. Let
thy salvation, O God, set me on high. The suffering Savior is now the
reigning monarch. Oh, our Lord knew that His Father
would not leave His soul in the grave, and He will not leave
those in Christ in the grave either. Well, if you and I could just
look beyond the grave, if we could just look past the cemetery,
look past the event of dying, if we can just look past that
and see, just look into glory, because we have the Word of God
and we can look into glory through the Word of God. Just read it. Paradise. It's called paradise.
Paradise. If we would set our minds on
things above, if we could really grab a hold of what we have in
Jesus Christ, we would be ready to die. We would be ready. I mean, we'd be anxious about
doing it. We would. In verse 13 and 36, He said,
I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify
Him with thanksgiving. You reckon we could do that under
such trials? Our trials are not compared to
His. And we could do that? You think we could magnify Him
with a song and thanksgiving? This also shall please the Lord
better than an ox or a bullock, better than sacrifice. The humble
see this and be glad you see it. You're glad you are. And
your heart shall live that seek God. For the Lord hears the poor
and despises not His prisoners. Paul called himself a prisoner
of Jesus Christ all the time. Let the heaven and earth praise
Him, the sea and everything that moves in it. Let it praise God. It all belongs to Him. None of
this belongs to me. You know the best reason I can
give you for not littering? It's God's earth. It's His. We should take care of it. We
should mow the grass. Tommy and Johnny mow this yard
over here and keep it looking so good all the time. Because
it's the Lord's. It's the Lord's. The Lord's house
ought to be the best looking anyway. You don't have to be
the most expensive. I mean, you can be poor and make your house
look good, clean. Let everything do what they do
in praise of God. For God will save Zion, the church,
and He'll build the cities of Judah that they may dwell there
and have it in possession. The seed also of His servants,
they will inherit it. They that love His name. This
is the key right here. There are people who believe
Calvinism have gone to hell. The Pharisees believed in election.
They believed that. And they perished. And nobody
ever perished that loves Jesus Christ. They that love His name. shall dwell there." Everybody
there loves him. Everybody there loves him. All
right.