Psalm chapter 70, there's only
five verses in this psalm, which is unusual. Let's read those
verses together. Beginning at verse one, it says,
Make haste, O God, to deliver me. Make haste to help me, O
Lord. Let them be ashamed and confounded
that seek after my soul. Let them be turned backward and
put to confusion that desire my hurt. Let them be turned back
for a reward of their shame that say, aha, aha. Let all those that seek thee
rejoice and be glad in thee. And let such as love thy salvation
say continually, let God be magnified. But I am poor and needy. Make haste unto me, O God. Thou art my help and my deliverer. O Lord, make no tarrying." Tarry. To tarry means to wait. And so
he's doubling up on this cry to the Lord. It opens up, make
haste, in verse one. It says make haste twice in verse
one, and then in verse five, make no tarrying, and make haste
again. So it's clear that this psalm
has urgency in the prayer. So if we look at this Psalm,
it's pretty easy to look back at it and capture the things
that are said here. The first thing I see that this
is a prayer. Most of the Psalms are a prayer.
This is no exception. It is a prayer. It's a prayer
from the man of God. Obviously, he prays to God. In
fact, he prays to the Lord, L-O-R-D, all capitals, and that is the
Lord God, Jehovah. And he prays to him for help.
And the man who prays is said to be, at the end of the psalm,
a poor man. He says in verse 5, I am poor
and needy. So we see that he's poor. He
prays with urgency. He uses, as I say, the word haste
and tarry, make no tarrying, and make haste to deliver me.
So he's very urgent. And he's in trouble. He has many
enemies. He says that, let them be ashamed and confounded that
seek after my soul. So he has trouble. They're seeking
hurt. to hurt his soul, and this is brought on by all these enemies.
So now, if we look at this word L-O-R-D, Jehovah, which is the
way that it is in the original in the King James Version, every
time the Most of the times when Jehovah is the underlying word
in scripture, they translate it as capital L, capital O, capital
R, capital D. And if you look in the Old Testament,
just the Old Testament, you see that Jehovah is the name of God
that He gives. He Himself has revealed Himself
by this name in the Old Testament, Jehovah. And just to refresh
your memory, I know that you probably have been given this
before, but in Genesis 14, verse 18, Abraham calls God the Most
High God. And then also in Genesis 17,
Abraham calls God, God Almighty. And then in Genesis 22, he's
called Jehovah the Lord. Jehovah Jireh, which is the Lord
who sees and provides. He sees to our salvation and
He provides every need in our salvation. And then in Exodus
15, in verse 26, He is the Lord, or Jehovah, our healer. And then
in Exodus 17, verse 15, he's the Lord, Jehovah our banner,
our banner of victory, the one we look to and the one we boast
in. And then in Exodus 31, verse
13, he's the Lord who sanctifies, the Lord, our sanctifier. In
Judges chapter six and verse 24, he's the Lord, our peace.
And in Psalm 23, verse one, he's the Lord, our shepherd. Also,
in Jeremiah, he's the Lord, our righteousness. In Ezekiel, and
that's Jeremiah 23 and 33, in Ezekiel 48, the last verse, he
is God who is there, like Jesus Christ, is he shall never leave
us nor forsake us. And then also in the book of
Exodus, in chapter 3, when Moses asks the Lord, what is your name?
What shall I tell the Israelites your name? And he said, I am. And he goes on and he says, this
is my name forever. God, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. So he's the covenant God
of his people. So with all these things, we
can see that when David, the psalmist here, cries out, he's
crying out to the Lord, the Lord who provides, the Lord who is
our strength, our banner, our victory, our peace, our righteousness. Essentially, we could say the
Lord who is our all. In Psalm 27, he says, the Lord
is my strength and the Lord is my salvation. And that's the
same word here, Jehovah. All capitals, L-O-R-D. And then
in the New Testament, in Matthew 121, his name shall be called
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And Jesus
is the Lord, salvation. And you remember Simeon, the
old prophet, in Luke chapter 2, verse 30, he says, now mine
eyes have seen thy salvation. So the Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah
God, the Lord our righteousness, the Lord our salvation. The One
who provides and He provides Himself. God the Father has provided
His Son. The Lord Jesus has given Himself.
And all of these things are attributed to God, God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God bears witness
to this name. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment
of this name in the accomplishment of it. And he's the one we worship,
as Thomas said, when he saw the prints of the nails in Jesus'
hands, my Lord and my God. There's no question the Bible
teaches Jesus is Jehovah God. It's ironic, isn't it, that Jehovah's
Witnesses deny Jesus to be God. and yet they're Jehovah's Witnesses
by their own claim, which means they're false witnesses because
they deny the one they profess to be witnesses of because they
deny that Jesus is that one. And in the New Testament, in
Acts chapter 4, verse 10 through 12, it says that Jesus is the
only name, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, is the only name Under heaven,
given among men, whereby we must be saved. And in Romans chapter
10 verse 13, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord
shall be saved. So there's no question, and you
know in Romans 10 it's talking about Christ, there's no question
that the Bible is emphasizing throughout the Old and the New
Testament, Jesus Christ is God the Lord. Here in this psalm
he's saying, make haste. I have an urgent need, a need
that needs the attention of my God and my Savior. That's why
he's calling to him, help me make haste, don't delay, don't
let time pass. I need help now. And that's what
happens when we're in a sense of our need. When we realize
our need, we realize it's an urgent need, don't we? When you
have pain, if you're experiencing pain, then you need help right
away, don't you? And I know with doctors nowadays,
I've experienced this, the real pain is masked by a small amount
of pain. They give you a shot, that hurts,
but then you don't feel anything, or they knock you out or something
like that. I mean, they give you a complete they put you under
anesthesia and you're not aware of what's going on, you don't
feel anything. You might feel it later, but
the real pain you wouldn't be able to endure. I don't know
how people in olden times were able to endure things like tooth
extractions and broken bones and other kinds of severe surgeries
that they had to go through without anesthesia. But here we see that
urgent need The urgent need occurs when God has given us this need
to cry out to him for to hurry up. I need you to hurry up. My
need is great and it's urgent. So that's the first thing we
see here is he cries out to the Lord. He's a man of God. He's
a poor man with an urgent need. He has many enemies. These enemies
are trying to hurt his soul. And so he calls out to the Lord.
He calls out to the one who has revealed himself to be the salvation
of his people. Everything we need is provided
in our God. All right. The second thing we
see here is that it is, besides it being a prayer to the Lord
God, Jehovah, And we know that's Christ. And a prayer that's urgent. He's asked to make haste. Let
me read a couple of other verses to you here in the Psalms. Look
at Psalm 86. In Psalm 86, it says this in
verse 1. He says, bow down thine ear,
O Lord. Hear me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul, for I am holy. O thou, my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee." So here is a man who has great need. He asks the Lord to hear him.
He's poor. He's needy. And he's asked that
he would preserve his soul. He says, I'm holy. And he asked
God to save his servant. He trusts in him. So he's God's
servant, trusting in the Lord. He's holy. And he's asking, as
a poor man and a needy man, that the Lord would preserve his soul
to save him. In verse 3 of Psalm 86, he says, Be merciful unto
me, O Lord, for I cry unto Thee daily. So not only does he have
a need, and it's urgent, but it's continuous. Daily. Every
day he's crying. Why does he cry daily? Because
he has a daily need. Because he has a daily need for
mercy. You see, when God deals with us, this is the mark of
God's grace in our lives. When God deals with us in saving
grace and mercy, the first thing we realize is our tremendous
need, and that grace also brings with it not only a sense of our
need, It may not at first, the revelation of the second part
comes perhaps gradually, but with growing intensity, that
our need is for Christ, and for Christ alone. So we have a need
in ourselves, and our need is for Christ, and knowing that
our need is for Christ alone, then we find that all of our
need is met in the Lord Jesus Christ. So we see that in Psalm
86 and verses 1 through 3. A daily need means a continuous
need. And he's asking in the same way,
bow down his ear, hear me, I'm poor and needy. And he asks for
salvation, preserve my soul, I'm holy. Now, we as believers,
we know that in ourselves we are not holy. We know we're sinful. In fact, our sin is the reason
we have this need, besides the fact that God is our creator. He's also our sustainer. He upholds
our life, not only our physical life, but our spiritual life,
especially our spiritual life. And that life is referred to
here in the Psalms as my soul. And my spiritual life and my
soul, all of my life is really contained in my soul. When my
body dies, my soul is going to be with the Lord. And so that
soul and that spirit that God indwells by Christ, that's our
our part that never dies, and it will be with the Lord. And
here he's crying that God would save his soul. And that's the
need of every believer. We need God to save us, don't
we? I need the Lord to save me. That expresses my great need. I need the Lord Jesus Christ
to save me. And if you're a believer, you
know that's true about yourself. I need the Lord to save me. And
that's the subject of our prayer, isn't it? Lord, save me. And
Jesus Christ, it says in Hebrews 7, verse 25, He's able to save
to the uttermost those that come to God by Him. We come to God
by Jesus Christ. We come to Jesus Christ, we're
coming to God. And we're coming to God by Him.
He's the one name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must
be saved, and He is able to save to the uttermost. So we ask Him
to save us to the uttermost. We don't bring anything. We're
poor. We have a need of everything. We're needy. We're completely
bankrupt to have anything to provide in ourselves. So we come
for everything. We're like an infant. No one
chooses an infant to help them because an infant can't help.
They don't have the understanding. They understand hardly anything. basic needs. I need food, I need
water, I need mom, but that's about as far as it goes. I'm
uncomfortable, but infants don't contribute. They're dependent,
and that's what we are. We're babes. We're children,
and the Lord Jesus calls his people little children. If anyone
hurts one of my little ones, he says, Okay, so we see that
this need is great, it's continuous, it's daily, it's an urgent need,
and we are all, as believers, we realize this need by God's
grace, and we realize that our need is for Christ, and therefore
when God gives us Christ, when He shows us Christ has met our
need, then we find our needs met in Christ alone. And this is so essential. If
we realize this, then God has taught us. And if we don't, then
we need to ask the Lord to teach us. And in fact, if the Lord
has taught us this, we ask him to teach us this again and again,
more and more. We want an increase of faith,
don't we? All right, let's go back to Psalm
70. He says, While I was talking about this
need and our urgent need, I want to read this hymn to you. We sing it at our church. I need
thee, precious Jesus, the hymn begins, for I am full of sin. My soul is dark and guilty. My heart is dead within. Now,
you would not think You would not think this way if you were
a self-righteous person. This is not the way we are naturally. We don't think in terms of, I
need the precious Jesus for I'm full of sin. My soul is dark
and guilty. My heart is dead within. We're trying to provide something
to make ourselves more acceptable until the Lord teaches us what
we truly are. So we need to be taught the truth
about ourselves. And that's what this hymn is
saying, is coming to God, as it says in 1 John 1, We're coming
to God, who is in the light, and in Him is no darkness, and
we're confessing what we are. We come to Christ, who is the
light. The blood of Jesus Christ only washes us from all of our
sin, and we confess our sins, and we confess our sin nature,
and our sin actions, and thoughts, and everything we are, and we
know that Jesus Christ and His precious blood is the propitiation
for our sins, and He is our advocate, and this is the way we live our
lives, isn't it? So here this psalm says this,
I need thee precious Jesus. I am full of sin. My soul is
dark and guilty. My heart is dead within. I need
the cleansing fountain where I can always flee the blood of
Christ, most precious, the sinner's perfect plea. Do you see that?
That's 1 John chapter 2 in a nutshell where he says, if we sin, if
any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus,
the righteous. and he is the propitiation for
our sins. And this is what we bring to
God, like the publican, God be merciful, look upon me, don't
look upon my sin, but look upon the propitiation for my sins
that you have provided and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and his
blood shed for sinners. All right, the next part of this
hymn, by the way, goes on, I need thee precious Jesus, I need thee
day to day. to fill me with thy fullness,
to lead me on my way. I need thy Holy Spirit to teach
me what I am, to show me more of Jesus, to point me to the
Lamb." I think that this hymn is an excellent commentary on
the five verses in this psalm, Psalm 70. All right, the other
thing I want to point out here is our need. Our need for Christ
is the great doctrine that God teaches us in our heart and soul.
And this is an issue I know you'll hear preachers on both sides
of this. One of them will say, well, you
need to know these points of doctrine. Another one will say,
it's not enough to know doctrine. So here I'm trying to strike
to the heart of what this psalm is teaching us. Our need for
Christ is the lesson God teaches his people. I can't emphasize
that strongly enough. Our need for Christ is the lesson
God teaches His people. And that is a doctrine. There's
no question about it. That's a doctrine. But it's a
doctrine that we learn because God teaches us. It's a doctrine
we never learn. stop needing to learn. We continuously
need to have that taught to us, which God does so graciously
through the Word, through the Gospel, through our experience,
through trouble in our lives. These things are used together. And of course, the Holy Spirit
working in us to bring to the light of our own inner man through
faith what Christ is to our soul. So God has to teach this to us.
So this is a great grace. When God teaches us our need
and teaches us that our need is for Christ and that Christ
is all of our need met by God's grace, that is the doctrine of
the gospel, isn't it? And so it kind of gets... It
answers all of these concerns about doctrine and about heart
being taught and about the real subject matter, doesn't it? That
our need for Christ and that Christ is all of our need met
by God's grace, that's the lesson. What a great need we have. What
a great Savior He is. All right. And this heart persuasion
is not just academic knowledge, as some would say, well, it's
just the ascent to this and that truth. No, this is a knowledge
that penetrates every part of our intellect, our will, our
affections, everything about us. This need we have for God
drives us to cry out to Him, doesn't it? In fact, it says
in Psalm 34, and let's see if I can put my finger on this in
my notes. In Psalm 34, it says this in verse 17, the righteous
cry, the righteous cry. This is how, this is what God
teaches them, cry. And the Lord hears. Isn't that
interesting? First God afflicts them, they
cry, and he hears. He did it. And he delivers them
out of all their troubles. The Lord is near or nigh unto
them that are of a broken heart and saves such as be of a contrite
spirit. And this was the case when Jesus
walked the earth. He healed all those who had need
of healing. Don't you know you have a need?
And we may not feel it as we ought to. I'm sure we don't.
But you do have a need, don't you? If you're a believer, you
have a need for Christ. And this is where resonance happens
when you hear the gospel, doesn't it? You know what resonance is? It's like when you pluck a guitar
string or you strike a piano key and it hits that chord. that
physical cord, and it vibrates at that frequency it's tuned
to vibrate at, that's called resonance. When that physical
element is moving at its natural resonant frequency, and it causes
a sound. The soul of the believer has
a resonant frequency, and that resonant frequency is my need
for Christ. I can't meet one part of anything
in my salvation. I'm a helpless, not only helpless,
but sinful man. I need the Lord to do everything
for me. And so that's why it's such a
resonant chord. You strike that, and suddenly
the believer is all attentive. And yes, yes, I was in the doldrums. My heart was cold. Now I hear
the gospel again. Suddenly there's music that begins
to, you know, the cry to the Lord, Lord, I do need you. And
I realize I've been like Adam hiding behind the trees with
fig leaves and foolish. And then your voice I heard in
the gospel. And now suddenly I realize that
the God I sinned against is the God is my Savior and the Lord
Jesus Christ. What a gracious, what a gracious
salvation. What a great Savior. Okay. So here I want you to look also
at Revelation chapter 3. In Revelation chapter 3, Jesus,
the Lord, is speaking to the church there. He says in verse
17, Thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and I have
need of nothing. And knowest not that thou art
wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Now, here's
what Christ tells him to do. I counsel thee to buy of me gold
tried in the fire. That means faith that's been
tried and proven, faith that's been tested, faith that's been
stretched and made to cry and see again that Christ is my all.
He says that thou mayest be rich. You see, true spiritual riches
is a soul made poor, like Jesus said in Matthew 5, verse 3, blessed
are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And here he tells the church, he says, I counsel thee to buy
of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, true
riches, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed. That's
the righteousness of Christ. that the shame of thy nakedness
do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou
mayest see." That's the recognition that I'm a sinner like the man
in John chapter 9. And Jesus said, if you were blind,
you'd have no sin. Make me see that. And as he says,
as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore,
and repent. We need a change of mind, don't
we? A change of mind about ourselves and about Christ. Our great need
as sinners, our helplessness, and our poverty, we have nothing,
and Christ is everything. And how is it that the Lord Jesus
Christ is everything to our souls? Notice that in this Psalm, Psalm
70, This is a psalm not only of David and believers, but it
is a psalm of the Lord Jesus Christ himself during the days
when he was on the earth. He's the one who cried with strong
crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death,
as it says in Hebrews chapter 5. And he was heard in that he
feared. So what the gospel reveals is
that we are made rich by Christ, but the way we're made rich is
that he was made poor. How do we live? He died. How are we righteous? He bore
our sins. 2 Corinthians 5.21, he who knew
no sin, God made him to be sin, who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. He became, he bore
the curse that the curse might not come upon us. And so we see
that we are rich, spiritually rich, because Christ was made
poor. And why was he made poor? Why
was he made needy? He didn't have any needs. He
wasn't poor. He humbled himself. He made himself of no reputation.
He took on the form of a servant and a man in order that he might
taste death for every son. And he might take away the sting
of death by bearing our sins. And so he makes us rich by himself
becoming poor. And this is the delightful news
of the gospel. It says in Isaiah chapter 52,
I'll read this to you, in Isaiah 52 verse 7, he says, How beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,
and that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good
things, that publishes salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God
reigneth. That's a person whose feet are
beautiful. And who is that person? Well, first and foremost, it's
the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, he said in Luke chapter
4, quoting from Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. And that's
what he's saying here. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him that brings good tidings. But it's not just
Christ. It's everyone who, as an ambassador
of Christ, preaches the gospel of Christ. He goes on in Isaiah
52 and verse 8. Thy watchman shall lift up the
voice. With the voice together shall
they sing, for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall
bring again Zion. Break forth into joy. Sing together. You waste places of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem. And I can just go on and on.
In fact, I will go on one more verse. The Lord hath made bare
his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations and all the ends
of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. That is good news,
isn't it? Christ came preaching himself
as the savior of sinners, the salvation of our God. And everyone
who believes Christ, who also carries that gospel in our hearts,
By God's grace, when we converse with one another in the assembly
of God's congregation in the church, and we're speaking to
one another of the great things the Lord has done for us, the
Lord Jesus Christ, we are also publishing that same gospel,
aren't we? And when we're given the grace
where God opens the door and we speak to someone who is an
unbeliever of the gospel, we're publishing that same gospel.
And that is good news to sinners. Alright, so our need is great,
our need is urgent, our need is continuous, our need is for
Christ, and Christ is the one who is all sufficient by God's
provision to meet all of our need. And here's the interesting
thing, never lose sight of this also, that when God meets our
needs, he causes us, he calls on us to seek him in our need. And when we do, then we find
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one we actually need it. When we cry, Lord, help me, save
me. And the Lord always directs us
when we're taught by the gospel to the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Christ and Him crucified. I know that we are laboring on
this point here about our need and our poverty, but I want to
just run down with you all the different things for which a
believer is expressing this need from the heart. We don't pretend. We don't make this stuff up.
God has taught us this from His Word, and we borrow His words
to think like He thinks about ourselves and about Himself,
about our Savior and about His salvation. We're taking God's
Word as little children to our heart as this is the way things
really are about ourselves, about God Himself, about Christ and
about His salvation. And what do we learn when God
teaches us this? Well, we first learn, as I mentioned
earlier, that not only do we have a great need because of
our sin, but that God has met our need in Christ and He tells
us that the one we need is Christ. So, remember in the garden, When
Adam sinned, remember what happened? Immediately he knew he was naked
and he hid behind the trees and God had to call to him. And the
Lord said to him, Adam, where are you? He said, I heard your
voice in the garden and I was afraid. He said, did you eat
of the tree I told you not to eat? Well, the woman that you
gave me, she gave me, and I ate of it. And you know the story.
He goes on, and he asks the woman what she did. He asked the devil,
or the serpent, what he did. And then he goes down the list.
He says, this is what's going to happen. He starts with the
devil. And he says, because you've done this, you're cursed above
everything. In fact, the seed of the woman
that you deceived is going to crush your head. You're going
to bruise his heel. Speaking of Christ, he's going
to crush your head. and that he speaks to the woman,
you're gonna have pain and sorrow and childbearing, and to Adam,
the ground is gonna be cursed, you were taken from the dust,
you're gonna be returned to the dust. But notice, in that, in
that great sin of Adam, with all the consequences that came
upon Adam and all of his children that sinned in him, me and you,
the death that came upon us because of that sin, notice how God opens
with the promise the salvation that he would provide in the
Lord Jesus Christ. The seed of the woman, that was
the promise. And then he goes on in the same
chapter, chapter 3 of Genesis, and he clothes Adam and Eve with
the skins of an animal. Again, pointing to the righteousness
that God would provide in slaying his son for our sins. And then
in chapter 4 of Genesis, we see Abel offering the lamb and God
accepting him, and Cain rejected because he tried to come with
his own works. So even in the beginning, we see that the way
into paradise was shut out. Men were shut out of paradise.
Men were shut off from the tree of life because of sin. And yet God was bringing them
back to himself. And in this psalm, we see the
same thing, the grace of God, that he would open the way back,
or not just back into the Garden of Eden, but beyond that, more
than that. to eternal life, to union with
Christ, who is the second and last Adam, the one in whom all
of our needs have been met because he has stepped in to bear our
sin, and to fulfill our righteousness, and to give us eternal life,
and to cause us to know God in truth, and to come to him in
our need and helplessness. and to find all of our needs
met in the Lord Jesus Christ. So that God, against whom we
have sinned and by his justice had to shut us out of that garden,
has brought us in by his grace through Christ into a heavenly
paradise, an eternal home with Christ in glory. He went into
glory and said, I go to prepare a place for you. What amazing
grace. that the scales of God's justice
have been satisfied in such a way that it seems a blessing of disproportionate
magnitude has been given to us because of the infathomable,
incomprehensible price of Christ who shed his blood and put himself
on the scales of God's justice. And this is what this is talking
about, our needs met in Christ. So each one of us now, being
taught by God from his word in the gospel through the experience
of our life and the awareness of who we are from the word of
God and feeling that through the operations of God's spirit
in us, what we see is that we have a need for God precisely
Every point, point by point, met by the salvation He has provided
in Christ. So that as we read last, in the
last Psalm, Psalm 69, verse 4, when Christ said, I restored
that which I took not away, here we see that, that we need God. to be sovereign. We need Him
to choose us to salvation. We need Christ to die and redeem
us by His precious blood. We need Him to clothe us in His
righteousness and God to justify us for the righteousness of Christ. And we need Him to give us this
life eternal life in our souls by an almighty, irresistible
Holy Spirit to cause us to believe on Christ and then to preserve
us in this life and faith in Christ and to bring us to glory
and to make Himself known in His fullness. We need all that,
don't we? And we know we have such a great
need that we can't provide one part of it. In fact, we find
in ourselves such a cold heartedness and such a sinfulness that we
seem to oppose our own salvation. And we say, Lord, my need is
much greater than I realized. I need a Savior. I need a Savior. And that Savior is Christ. What
a blessing it is to find that resonance in our soul with this
psalm and this truth, the gospel revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, so now we see that this
is a cry of a poor man, a needy man, a man with urgency, a man
who has a continuous need, a man whose need was made known to
them by the Lord himself, and the Lord also provided for that
need in Christ. What a blessing it is. All right,
I want to also look now here at this next part in verse 4. Well, it says in verse 3, verse
2 and 3, he says, let them be ashamed and confounded that seek
after my soul. Let them be turned backward and
put to confusion that desire my hurt. Let them be turned back
for a reward of their shame that say, aha. Aha, you know what
those words mean, don't you? It's like someone rubbing their
hands together. They think they have gotten what
they set out to do. Their conniving, deceitful schemes
have been brought to their satisfaction and they're rubbing their hands
with delight. Ah, but they're going to be fooled,
aren't they? Because they think they've succeeded. Christ there
hangs on the cross and they're saying, aha, aha, we have him. He said he was, but he wasn't
because we were able to overthrow him and we were able to reproach
him and he did nothing about it because he was powerless.
And they didn't see that it was in their very attempt to destroy
Christ that they brought destruction on themselves because it says
here in verse two, let them be ashamed. In other words, let
God put them to shame. And confusion, confounded, put
him to confusion. They seek after my soul. Let
them be turned backward and put to confusion that desire my hurt,
the hurt of his soul. Now, as believers, our experience
is that our conscience naturally accuses us, and also Satan himself
tries to accuse us. It's easy to take God's word
and find where we don't conform to that word, and it becomes
an accusation. But what do we do when these
accusations arise? Well, a number of things. First
of all, we usually, like Adam, we tend to hide, or we tend to
deny it, or we don't realize how severe it is. But then, through
the operations of God's grace in our lives, we realize that
this is the very thing that God has been telling us about ourselves.
We're sinners, and we confess our sins, and we come to the
light. And we walk in that light as we are, according to God's
own word, that we're sinners, that Christ came to save sinners.
And suddenly, in the confessing of our sins, we realize that
God is faithful and just because of Christ to forgive us our sins.
He's the propitiation for our sins. Not only did he shed his
blood, but he advocates for us. He answered with his blood, he
answers with his risen life, and he saves us to the uttermost.
So we find ourselves pleading with God the merits of Christ,
and Christ's answer for us in blood, and in wisdom, and in
righteousness, and everything. And so our experience is that
the Word of God then washes us. Yes, we've been accused. Yes,
we feel the despondency of that, the weight of our sin upon us. And yet we see the light of God's
Word that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one whose blood washes
us or cleanses us from all sin. So we come. We come, by God's
grace He draws us to Himself. We say, yes, I'm the needy one.
I'm the sinful one. And this going on then corresponds
to what we're reading here in verse 2 and 3, that this accusation,
this accusation, it may be true of us. We agree. Our advocate
tells us. Agree. Agree with your adversary.
Agree. Because Christ has borne our
sin. And then we come to a greater
understanding because the gospel not only tells us to confess
our sins, but he says, and who shall lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? It is God who justifies. If God
has justified, then according to his own nature and character,
he's been satisfied for us in Christ. And so who can condemn
us? No one. Christ has died. So we
find this experience as a believer that out of the horrid wretchedness
of our sinfulness comes the grace of God to bring us to the light,
confessing what we are, what we've done, looking to Christ
again, and finding God has already judged us in Christ, judgment
has passed, wrath has been taken away, Christ reigns and advocates,
and by the power of his life, he's going to save us to the
uttermost. And so we say, let them be put to shame. Jesus could
pray this in an intercession against his enemies, against
Satan, against all of the kingdom of Satan. And we can ask the
Lord to do this for us according to his will, to bury our sins,
to cast them into the sea, and to deliver us from the enslavement
to our own sinful nature, to cause us to believe Christ. to
realize the law has been fulfilled by Christ, that God has been
answered and God is glorified in our salvation. All of this
is that continuous teaching of God's Word and the Spirit of
God applying it to us as it is here. Basically, we're pleading
what God has said. The Lord has stood up for us.
We're listening and we're looking to the One who is our salvation.
We don't know what to do when these troubles come, when sin
comes. We don't know what to do. We
have no power. And yet the Lord has answered,
He says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
And we say, aha, it's got to be in God's will, God's choosing,
Christ shed blood, the Spirit's regenerating power of life and
faith. And so we come to Him and say,
Lord, receive me for Christ's sake. That's the lesson God teaches
us in these things. And then in the next verse, in
verse four, let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad
in thee, and let such as love thy salvation say continually,
let God be magnified. Notice here, all those that seek
thee. When do we seek the Lord? When
the Lord tells us, seek my face. Isn't that what Psalm 27 says? In Psalm 27, I think it's verse
eight, or maybe it's verse six, he says, It's written in verse
8, when thou said, seek my face, my heart said, thy face, Lord,
will I seek? And here he says, let all those
that seek thee rejoice. Why do we seek him? He told us
to seek him. How did he tell us? Through this
need we have. He came to us in our blind condition
and he opened our eyes to see our sin and his salvation in
Christ. And so we seek him, don't we?
We want nothing more than that God would find us in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's seeking Him, isn't it?
I need to be found in Him. I have an earnest desire because
I have an urgent need. That's the way that we find it
true in our lives, don't we? By God's grace. When we hear
the Gospel, We realize our need, we realize that Christ is the
one we need, and we realize God has given him to meet our need
in an all-sufficient manner. And that's why he says in this
next part of this, let those that seek Thee rejoice and be
glad in Thee, in Christ, the one we're praying to, the name
we call on, the one who is Jehovah, our righteousness, our provider,
our everything, our sanctifier. The one who is there, the one
who is our shepherd. It's all Christ, isn't it? And
what does it say in Ephesians? Look at Ephesians chapter 1.
I want you to see this. I know you've seen it before,
but I want you to see this. It's very, very significant. Look at Ephesians chapter 1. He says in verse 3, I'll read
verse 2, Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and
from the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in verse 3, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed
us, notice the next words, with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places where in Christ there is no blessing outside of Christ,
but in Christ there are all blessings. There's no middle ground. We
either have all blessings or we have no blessings, no heavenly,
no spiritual blessings. And all spiritual blessings,
all heavenly blessings are only found in Christ. And this is
what God has done for us. He's given us everything in Christ. And that includes faith. It includes hope, love, the Spirit
of God, our righteousness, our holiness, everything. There's
nothing outside of this all. Every spiritual blessing is in
Christ. That's why he says here in Psalm
70, verse 4, let all those that seek Thee rejoice, and be glad
in thee. And, he says in the latter part
of verse four, and let such as love thy salvation say continually,
let God be magnified. At this point, we're tempted
to become Pentecostals, aren't we? Let God be magnified, because
now we see that God has done everything for us who were so
sinful, we could do nothing for ourselves, and He continuously
teaches us this, of the urgency and continuous nature of our
need, and of Christ being the urgent and continuous supply
of our need, given by God Himself. through the gospel, through faith
in Him. We hear it. We say, this is good news. This
is the glad tidings, good news of good things, like it says
in Isaiah 52, verse 7. And we say, the one who is saying
these things has beautiful feet. We see this in the Lord Jesus
Christ. How beautiful are His feet. And
like the woman, we pour out our tears and dry His feet with our
tears. hair and we're so in admiration of Christ that he would be everything
to us, that he would make himself poor to make us spiritually rich
in everything. And we say, let God be magnified.
His salvation, thy salvation is of the Lord, isn't it? If
it's his, it's going to be done right. And he's going to get
the glory for it because it's his doing. We are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. Remember Ephesians 2.10? It's
all of grace. We're the work that he's working,
and it's going to be done right. It's going to be perfect. Anything
less than that would not be God's work, but it'll be right because
it's done in Christ. And he goes on, he reiterates
in verse 5, I am poor and needy, make haste, hurry up. Oh God,
thou art my help and my deliverer. Oh Lord, make no tarrying. And there's never a time when
this is an inappropriate prayer. It's always an appropriate prayer,
isn't it? To find that Christ is everything
and that we are nothing. This is the continuous lesson
that we learn. I've been learning this lesson
over and over again. And you know what? I heard this
a long time ago. This is a lesson on a test that
God will not let us fail. He's not going to let us fail.
He's going to keep giving us this test until we pass it. There's
only one answer on it, what's your need? And there's only one
question, what's your need? And the answer comes, Christ. And Christ alone, Christ from
first, Christ to last, Christ alone, the author and finisher
of our salvation. And looking unto Jesus, we are
given this grace, huh? Let's pray. Thank you, Lord,
for such a great, great savior. with such a great salvation for
such great sinners who are so needy and so poor as we are,
such an urgent need that we don't see it and you have to show it
to us. Thank you for the gospel you tell us about what we are.
and then you tell us about our Savior and in Him we see God
Himself and we find our hearts overwhelmed with joy that the
one against whom we've sinned has provided everything to save
us from all of our sins and to bring us to Himself, help us
to never doubt Him and to always love Him for this great grace. We pray, Lord, that you would
not let us go. Preserve us to keep us and present us to Yourself
without blame, with exceeding joy according to Your Word. We're
borrowing those words even now as we ask in Jesus' name we pray,
Amen.