As I said many things last week
about the Lord Jesus Christ in that Psalm, so they also apply
here. Now there's several things in
Psalm 57 that impressed me. They impressed me by what David
did and by what he said when he was under this great distress
because of his unjust enemies. We know that these words were
given to David by the Holy Spirit. And therefore, because of how
David spoke in this psalm, because of what he said here when he
was under distress, knowing it's by the Holy Spirit given to us,
the people of God who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, this
psalm is a great comfort to me. We see that when David's enemies
chased him relentlessly, when King Saul and his men hounded
him as if he was the worst criminal in all of the kingdom, when they
accused David falsely of opposing the king, which he didn't do,
and therefore opposing God's anointed, and chased him out
of the inheritance of the Lord, because David refused to take
up arms against King Saul in his own defense, even though
his men sometimes wanted him to. And even when these enemies
of David overwhelmed him by their unjust hatred and all these accusations
and slanders and condemning him and chasing him to kill him,
In this psalm, what we see is that David, he doesn't become
overwhelmed with all of the thoughts of his enemies as if someone
in a dream at night. Sometimes that happens to me.
I'll have a thought about something and I'll wrestle that thought
and it will be constantly bothering me. And until the Lord gives
us relief, In prayer, we go, Lord, what is happening? What's going on? And we go to
the Lord with our trouble. That's what David does here.
In the midst of this trouble, which would be overwhelming to
say the least, he appeals to God. He doesn't hold it in. He doesn't muses over it in order
to resolve it himself. He goes to the Lord and he asks
the Lord for mercy because these people who are chasing him and
seeking his life, to take away his life, are doing it unjustly. He wants God in his court in
heaven to judge him and to set things straight, to have mercy
on him. So he calls upon the Lord for
mercy. He says in the Psalm, in verse
one, he says, Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me,
for my soul trusteth in thee. Now, you and I, who believe on
Christ, we do trust in the Lord. There's no doubt about that.
God has given us this grace. It didn't come from ourselves.
It wasn't given to us because of our works. But nevertheless,
God, by his grace, has given us faith in Christ, and we therefore
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But you know how it is. Our faith
in Christ has its ups and downs. Sometimes we need an increase
of faith and we feel it. Other times we need an increase
of faith and we don't feel it. So we're unstable in that sense. Our faith needs to grow. Our
faith is imperfect. Our faith, everything about us
really is not only imperfect but is sorely lacking. And so
when David says, be merciful unto me, be merciful unto me,
for my soul trusteth in thee, we would take that reason for
his cry to God for mercy. Because I trust you, have mercy
on me. We have to understand it in a
couple of ways. First, he's saying, I have nowhere
else to go. Have mercy on me. I'm trusting
you. And secondly, he's also, as the
Lord Jesus Christ, he's asking for God to have mercy upon him
based on his own merit. And part of that merit is that
Christ trusted God. It doesn't matter what he was
in, whether it was unjust, false accusations, suffering, tears,
sorrow, hunger, thirst, everything, Christ trusted his father in
the darkest of times, in the worst of times, when he was forsaken
by God, when the sky was dark, when his disciples forsook him,
when Judas betrayed him, when all of the religious leaders
falsely accused him and the soldiers and the Gentiles rose up with
them to put him to death. He trusted in the Lord. So his
faith in God was unquestionably perfect and without flaw. So
it's reasonable to understand that he could ask God for mercy
and God would give him that mercy because he deserved it. He deserved
for God to be merciful, but he doesn't plead in a deserving
way, but he's still pleading as one who is utterly dependent
upon God. And he does that with the greatest
possible humility, perfect humility, and under the humiliation of
what he's going through, and also in independence that's perfect. And all of this shows us how
we are to trust God when things are dark, when they don't look
like. There's no evidence for God's kindness to us. God's word
remains and God's word is certain. We can trust Christ. And that's
what this is teaching us to do. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the
Lord. Trust in the Lord. First, trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ, that when he trusted God, His faith
in God is our faith. His love was perfect. His faith was perfect. His prayers
were heard. His tears were perfect tears.
His sorrow for our sins that he bore was a perfect sorrow.
Everything about him was perfect. And he did what he did as our
captain. And I wanna turn to Hebrews chapter
five so that you can see this there in Hebrews chapter five. I want to read from Hebrews 5
beginning at verse 7. So if you can get there, he says
this in Hebrews 5. He says that in verse 6 that
God spoke of Christ as a priest after the order of Melchizedek.
And then in verse 7 he says, who in the days of his flesh,
this is our priest now, the Lord Jesus Christ, like Melchizedek,
in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers, there
he is praying, and supplications, making his supplication to God
out of his distress, with strong crying and tears unto him that
was able to save him from death, you see, this is calling upon
God like David did in Psalm 57, And he was heard in that he feared. There we see that God heard him
for his own merit. He feared God, he trusted. And
fearing God is a synonym for trusting God. If you fear God,
you will trust him. If you do not fear God, you have
no need to trust him, no respect, no regard for him, no awe of
him. no sense that you're in his hands
for life and all things, and so you won't trust him. You won't
call on him. you won't worship him, but one who fears God does
trust, does call, does worship him and love him. And then in
verse eight, Hebrews five, verse eight, it says, though he were
a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered
and being made perfect, perfect all the way, perfect, complete
in his role as our savior. He says, and being made perfect,
He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that
obey him. called of God an high priest
after the order of Melchizedek. So here you can see that the
Lord Jesus Christ was perfected as our salvation, as the author
of eternal salvation, the one who brought it in, who saved
us. He's the one. And he became perfect
because of his sufferings, by his prayers, in depending on
God, in trusting God, in the obedience of his own submission
to the will of God when that will meant his own suffering
in unspeakable ways we can't even imagine. Okay, so back to
Psalm 57. You can see here then that the
Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled this psalm in his prayers in the days
of his flesh when he suffered with strong crying and tears
and he made his supplication unto God who was able to save
him from death and he was heard in that he feared and in so doing
he became the author of eternal salvation to all those who trust
in Christ. That's what it means by obeying
him. believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, unlike Israel. If you
remember in Hebrews chapter four, the contrast was made to those
who would not believe God so that those who do believe are
those who are obedient to Christ. OK. All right. So now back to
Psalm 57. So we hear in this psalm here,
he says in verse one, my soul trusteth in the yea in the shadow
of thy wings will I make my refuge. All the world was against David
it seemed. And all the world certainly was
against Christ. His disciples forsook him. They
weren't opposing him, but they weren't there to help him. Everyone
had left him and most of them were against him. And so what
does he do? He seeks refuge. He seeks refuge
in God. Now, in Deuteronomy, in chapter
33 and verse 27 of Deuteronomy. This is back in the writing of
Moses now. It says, the eternal God is thy
refuge. And this is talking to the church,
to the people of God, the Israel of God. He says, the eternal
God is thy refuge. I think about that for a minute.
The eternal God is our refuge. It's one thing to hole up in
a cave somewhere like David was doing, but here David is, David
He took refuge physically in a cave, but in his soul, he took
refuge in God, okay? And prophetically, that was Christ,
but in our own application, in the application to the believer,
we are taking refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's the
way we take our refuge in God. So Deuteronomy 33, 27, the eternal
God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. And
he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee and shall say,
destroy them. All right, that's God. God is
for us. Can you hear it? If God be for
us, who can be against us? And then also in Deuteronomy
32, in verse 9, it says this. Listen to these words from Deuteronomy
32, verse 9. The Lord's portion is his people. And so God's inheritance is his
people. Christ's inheritance is the church. The Lord's portion is his people.
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land,
and in the waste howling wilderness, he led him about. He instructed
him. He kept him as the apple of his
eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest,
fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,
beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead him,
and there was no strange God with him." So just like an eagle
stirs herself up in her nest and flutters over her young,
spreads abroad her wings, and takes her little eaglets on her
own wings and bears them, God does this for his people. You
see, God is giving us every reason to trust him. every reason to
take consolation in him by trusting him. We should see God fluttering
over his people, stirring himself up and taking them upon his wings
and carrying them. and leading them without any
other God with him. He alone, God alone is our, we
are his inheritance and he is our refuge, our safety, our salvation,
okay? So David is doing this, he's
fleeing to God for refuge and the God he flees to now is who? Well, this is very important. I wanna say this and make sure
you hear it. When we call upon God, We cannot come directly
to God the Father. The only way we can come to God
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the way. No
man comes to the Father but by me. I am the way, the truth and
the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. So when we go to God the Father,
we only go through the way, the Lord Jesus Christ. And what that
means is that when Christ goes to the Father, we are in Christ
and we go to the Father with Him. And it also means that when
we look to Christ and come to Christ and call upon Him as our
God and Savior, then in obedience to God the Father, we're coming
to God by him. But it also means because Christ
is not ashamed to call us his brethren, he has made us the
sons of God, that we also, by Christ, have access to God through
his precious blood. So all those things teach us
that we don't come, we need a mediator. So when David, in this psalm,
says, be merciful unto me, oh God, be merciful unto me, The
believer can only say these words to God with a view towards Christ,
that God would look upon the Lord Jesus Christ and receive
me just like the publican did. Oh God, be merciful to me, the
sinner. So we pray the same way. And then I wanted to notice with
you that in this psalm, looking ahead a little bit, not at the
next verse, but looking ahead in verse five, notice that while
David was in this distress, which I know that in my own experience,
when troubles hit, I'm always thinking about the trouble itself. Let's say it's you know, something
breaks, or something financial, or something in sickness, or
there's something in conflict with somebody. It doesn't matter
what it is. It can just be my own inner thoughts.
When there's any kind of trouble like this, I tend to turn that
trouble itself over and over in my mind, thinking about how
unjust it is, or how to get out of it, or how I'm going to fix
it, or any number of things, until the trouble is bigger than
I can handle. And then, like David, then we
go to the Lord, don't we? That's when we take refuge. And
it says here, until the calamities be overpassed. But notice in
verse five, He says, Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let thy glory be above all the earth. And then if you go on
to verse nine, I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people.
I will sing unto thee among the nations, for thy mercy is great
under the heavens, thy truth under the clouds. Be thou exalted,
O God, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the
earth. How often when you are in trouble
and you're pouring out your supplication to the Lord, do you in the same
prayer ask that God would be openly, His glory would be openly
set forth and exalted above heaven and earth And in that exaltation,
you would see his glory and you would be delivered. That's just
not the way we think. I'm just speaking to myself.
I don't naturally think that way. But we're taught here, that's
the way we ought to think. And if you remember from Romans
chapter eight, he says, who is he that condemneth? Well, that's
the context here. David was condemned and chased
to death by his enemies. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. See, so it draws together everything
in this psalm and applies it to the Lord Jesus Christ and
shows that when he suffered because of our sins, he didn't complain
as if it was an unjust thing for God to do this. He received
it in submission and in obedience, calling upon God, who alone could
deliver him under the trouble that he experienced because of
our sins. And even in that prayer, he asked that God would be glorified,
because this was his whole life. Father, glorify thy name. Remember
from John chapter 12, around verse 28, and in John 17, he
says, glorify thy son that thy son
also may glorify thee. And so in all these things, we
see that the Lord Jesus Christ had that desire that God would
be glorified and in his being glorified, it would be for Christ
his deliverance because he was really doing the will of God,
but he was bearing our sins so that his cries and his prayers
and sufferings were because of our sins. And he was trusting
God in that. And that obedience of his and
that trust of his was the way that he became the author of
our eternal salvation. It's the way that we were saved
because we were in him. And so David is asking here in
this psalm for God to be glorified. It's really the Lord Jesus Christ
asking. And we now as believers, having
been saved by him, we want the Lord Jesus Christ to be glorified. We want him to be lifted up.
And we can see that that is God's purpose. And God glorifies himself
in his son. All right. So that's impressive. Very impressive to me that David
here in this psalm of supplication because of his enemies, crying
to God for mercy, seeking refuge from God, asks God to lift himself
up by making his glory known above the heavens and above the
earth. And in so doing, he would see that his salvation was in
God. He was safe and that the Lord
was on his side. God is for me. Who is he that
condemneth? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather,
who is risen again, who is also at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. There it is. Christ exalted is our salvation. No one can condemn us because
Christ died. Christ who died rose. He ascended. He is seated at the right hand
of God. He makes intercession for us. Therefore, you can see
now why the believer would pray this prayer. Lord, be exalted. Let your glory be above the heavens
and the earth in my salvation. OK. All right, so that's something
else that impresses me. And then look at verse seven
and nine. I want you to see this. He says, My heart is fixed, O
God, my heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise.
And then he goes on, he says, Awake up, my glory, awake, psaltery
and harp. I myself will awake early. When I read verse 8, Awake up,
my glory, it's not clear to me when I read that what that means.
Awake up, my glory. Awake, solitary and harp. What
is this? We don't usually talk that way. Wake up, my glory.
It's just a kind of a funny phrase, right? But if you look at Psalm
16, Psalm 16, he says in verse 9 of Psalm 16, therefore my heart
is glad and my glory rejoiceth, my flesh also shall rest in hope. I hope that you recognize Psalm
16 as the psalm speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ in his resurrection. He, according to Acts 2, which
explains this, He said, he will not leave my soul in hell. He
will, I've set the Lord always before me because he is at my
right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, my
glory rejoices, my flesh also shall rest in hope. Peter explained
this, saying that this was the Lord Jesus Christ, spoken of
Christ by David the prophet, and these words are his words
as our savior, speaking of his own resurrection. And in verse
nine, my heart is glad, my glory rejoiceth. Now, if you look at
Acts chapter two, remember, we're trying to understand what this
word glory here means in Psalm 57. But in Acts chapter two,
where this is explained by Peter, let me read how Peter quotes
this Psalm. And he says this, Let's see, where is this? I'm just going to read from verse
25. Actually, let me read verse 23. Okay, I'm going to read verse
22. He says, you men of Israel, hear
these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which
God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know,
him, Christ, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, see he was delivered for our sins by
God's purpose, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified
and slain. God did it. It was his purpose,
but he did it through wicked men, and they were to blame for
it. Verse 24, whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of
death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always
before my face. For he is on my right hand, that
I should not be moved. Therefore, now listen to these
words, Did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad. Moreover,
also my flesh shall rest in hope. All right. So Psalm 16 and Acts
chapter two explaining it. It's about the resurrection of
Christ, isn't it? And the glory, my glory in Psalm
16, verse nine was the tongue of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
was speaking. He was giving God with his voice. He was giving God praise. His glory rejoices. My tongue
rejoices. My tongue is glad, as he says
there. But here in Psalm 57, notice this in verse eight. Awake up, my glory. Awake, psaltery
and harp. I myself will awake early. So
if you take these words, the glory here is David saying, He's
talking about his mouth, his tongue, his words. He's talking
about audibly praising God. But notice the context. Awake
up, my tongue, or my glory. Awake, psaltery and harp. I myself
will awake early. So if you apply these words to
the context here, when he was under distress, and in Psalm
16 in Acts 2, you can see that this awaking here must have also
to do with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. My heart
is fixed, my heart is fixed, I will sing and give praise.
So he's looking forward in anticipation with confident expectation that
the Lord is going to raise him up and he's going to, with his
own mouth, in his resurrected body, he's going to give God
praise. And so this is, again, another example here of the This
psalm is a song of Christ, and it's also instructive to the
Lord's people, the church, of how Christ saved us from our
sins, and the context for that. He was being chased, and accused,
and slandered, and condemned unjustly, and eventually put
to death. All the while, he is trusting
God, he's asking God in his mercy, twice repeated, to save him,
and he is is obedient unto death with strong crying and tears,
and by these things he becomes the author of eternal salvation.
He actually does rise from the dead, and he actually does ascend
to heaven. He actually does set forth his
glory above the heavens and the clouds, and he actually does
make intercession for his people for our salvation. All right,
now let's look at verse two of Psalm 57. Let me go ahead and jump ahead
in my notes here. I gotta jump ahead another page.
Okay, in Psalm 57, verse two, it says, I will cry unto God
most high. unto God that performeth all
things for me." Now, I like this verse. I've liked it a long time,
and I don't know where I first heard it. Maybe it was Todd,
maybe it was somebody else. God that performeth all things
for me. I love how under the very trouble
which David was praying to God for his mercy in that trouble
and for deliverance. In his heart here, he says, he
sees God as God most high. Notice, I will cry unto God most
high. This is in the context of hiding
in a cave from his pursuers. And he says, I will cry to God
most high. Now, and then he adds, who performeth
all things for me. This is why every believer, this
is why the Lord Jesus Christ himself calls on God alone, because
he is the most high God, because he's sovereign. He is sovereign
over me. He is sovereign over my enemies. He rules over heaven and earth. He's God Most High. He's God
Most High because he's sovereign, but he's also God Most High because
he's holy. He does everything without any
compromise to any of his attributes. Everything in God is set forth
in the very highest possible glory in our salvation. There's no way that any part
of God's attributes could have been more highly exalted than
in the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, his
life and sufferings and death and resurrection and exaltation.
This is God setting forth his glory in the greatest possible
way. So he cries to God most high. And he also says here that
he performs all things for him. Now, this word here, performeth, also
means finished or perfected. And it reminds us when he says
he perfects all things for us, or he perfects us, that it's
God talking about his purpose his work and the consummation
of his purpose and his work, okay? So he performs all things
for us. He does it and he's the one who
brings it to perfection. Look at Psalm 138 in verse eight. I want you to see this verse
as well because this verse is very much like the one we're
reading here in verse two, Psalm 138 and verse eight. He says
this, The Lord will perfect that which
concerneth me. Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever. Forsake not the works of thine
own hands. Now, what does that remind you
of, the works of your own hands? Well, certainly it reminds us
of the work of Christ, but it also reminds me, at least, of
Ephesians chapter two, verse 10, where it says, we are his
workmanship. We are God's work, aren't we?
God has saved us. He has, he has purposed it. He has also brought it to pass.
He saved us in Christ, but he's also saving us by a work in us. And so in Philippians, now remember
this one, the Lord will perfect that which concerneth me. All
thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever. Forsake not the work of thine
own hands. And in Philippians chapter one,
He says it this way, and I know that you know this verse, but
I have to read it to you to remind us. Philippians 1, verse 6, Paul
says of the Philippians, being confident of this very thing,
that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. God's gonna finish his work.
He doesn't start and stop something. He doesn't get only halfway through
and give up. And the gifts and callings of
God are without repentance, Romans 11, 29. God always finishes his
work. And when he finishes the work
that he purposed from eternity and that he predestinated us
to be conformed to the image of his dear son, There's no way
he's not gonna finish that work. It's his work, isn't it? It's
his work We're the work of God, aren't we? we're his workmanship
and So I want to go back now to Ephesians chapter 2 and read
this with you in the context of this verse from Psalm 57 verse
2 he says in Ephesians 2 and And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
or lifestyle in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath, even as others. Now, notice the great grace of
God. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace
you are saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Notice, from death
to reigning with Christ. God did this, and it goes on,
that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches
of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus,
for by grace you are saved through faith, and that, not that faith,
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works. Not because you did something,
God didn't give you faith. graciously by what you did, but
because of his grace, lest any man should boast, for we are
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good's work." We are
God's work, and the work that God performs in us is out of
our own sins and our death in sins. even our sins that were
against God that are all our fault. And yet the work of God
gives us faith in Christ. That's mercy, isn't it? And it's
because of his love. He loved us even when we were
dead in sins and raised us up. This faith he's given to us is
in Christ, the Christ of God, who is our eternal salvation
by his sufferings and death and prayers. because Christ is the
one we believe. We have the eternal salvation
that is in Him, and this salvation is all of God, all performed
by God. It is salvation all of His grace. It is salvation through faith
in Christ, and that faith is faith that God gives. Not all
men have it. Not all men have faith. It's
certainly not of ourselves. It's the gift of God by free
grace alone, And God doesn't give it to us because of anything
in us. Otherwise we would boast and
faith excludes boasting because faith holds Christ alone as all
of its merit and all of its reason for salvation and all of its
salvation. But Christ himself, the one we
believe is our salvation, the unspeakable gift of God. God
has given us his son, he's given us his spirit, he's given us
eternal life with faith in Christ. And all of this is because God
started the work and God finished the work. God performs all things
for me. He did it in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Isn't that amazing? I find that truly amazing grace,
don't you? All right, now verse three is
talking about the same reproach that comes upon believers as
Psalm 56. I will refer you back to that
exposition. The evil treatment of Christ
is also the same kind of treatment that comes on his people. It
comes from the kingdom of Satan. It comes from Satan with a desire
to destroy the Lord Jesus Christ with his people. It comes by
deceit, it comes by trickery and treachery and false accusation
and slander with a motive to death, condemnation as if it's
a judgment of God, but it's not. It's not at all just. And the
most significant thing about it is that God is for us, God
has justified his people, no one can condemn any for whom
Christ died. And God says to them, all of
our enemies, their righteousness is of me. And that's from Isaiah
chapter 54 verse 17. All right. We're going to have
to stop here tonight and I'll decide whether we just rely on
the notes for the rest of this. I want to say this before we
close in prayer. next Thursday our children will
be here and they're going to Most of them are going to be
here and staying in our house So having a Bible study on next
Thursday will will not be really feasible So we're not going to
have Bible study this coming Thursday. So hope you remember
that I will try to send out a an email like I normally do, announcing
that again between now and then. Okay, let's pray. Father, thank
you for your goodness. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that we
can come to God by you, find all of our salvation in you,
everything we need, everything from our proper sorrow and tears
for our sin, for our sins against God, our prayers that we ought
to pray, the mercy we need, the faith we need, the love we ought
to have, the thanksgiving, and everything else comes from the
author of our eternal salvation, the one who in the days of his
flesh fulfilled everything for us. and answered God and received
answer from God for us, and our answer is in God's answer to
Him. And so we come by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to you,
O God, our Father, and we ask that you be glorified and glorify
your Son. Lift Him up in our eyes. Let His glory be seen for our
salvation. We pray that we might see His
face dressed in His righteousness and receive His graciously for
His sake. We pray, Lord, that the truth
of the gospel would burn in our hearts, and we would find great
peace in knowing this grace that's in Christ. In Jesus' name we
pray. Amen.