So if Jesus is the way, the truth,
and the life, then no man can come to the Father without him,
and therefore we know that David couldn't be speaking of himself
without a mediator in his prayer to the Lord in this psalm. So
therefore, no, this psalm can't be David speaking about himself. And that sounds like, well, That's
not the way I normally look at the Bible, and certainly David
must be speaking about himself in the psalm first and foremost.
But if the psalm is a message about David, or if the psalm
is a message about David as an example of all believers, then
we must at least, at a minimum, apply his prayer to God in Christ. because no one can come to God
except through Christ, our mediator. But David did not write the Psalms
as poems or as songs about himself to set himself up in the eyes
of other believers as if to say, this is what I said in my prayer.
Therefore, by extension, you can pray as I pray if you are
like me. There's something very peculiar
to be kind in this line of thinking, and yet how many commentators
that I've read apply this psalm to David alone, or maybe to David
and other believers. So yes, these words that were
written here are certainly words spoken and written by David,
But did he write about himself, or did he write of some other
man? Remember the Ethiopian asked
Philip, as he read Isaiah 53, he said, did the prophet speak
here of himself, or did he speak of some other man? Now those were the only two possibilities
that the Ethiopian could imagine the scripture in Isaiah 53 could
be speaking, that it could be understood either of himself
or some other man, and he was right to limit it to those two
options, but since Isaiah 53 could only apply to Christ, Therefore,
beginning at that scripture, if you remember in Acts chapter
8, Philip preached Christ to the eunuch, the Ethiopian eunuch,
and he preached Christ to him from Isaiah 53. How could a man that is a sinner,
as when we read in Psalm 33, if you happen to look, I mean
Psalm 31, if you happen to look in Psalm 31, he says this in
verse, let me see where it is here. In verse 10, he says, my life
is spent with grief. My years are spent with sighing. My strength faileth because of
mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed." So if this psalm is
spoken not by Christ, not speaking the psalm not written of Christ,
then it must be written about a man who is himself a sinner
because he confesses in verse 10 that he has iniquity. But
how could a sinner speak of God's favor to him unless, as a man,
he speaks of God's favor to him in Christ his surety? It's not
possible, is it? Any sinner praying to God concerning
himself apart from Christ, apart from Christ, if a man were to
pray to God apart from Christ, then surely that man could not
be led by the Spirit of God, could he? because the Lord Jesus
Christ said, no one comes to the Father but by me. So, listen
to these words from 2 Samuel 23. David said this, now these
be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said,
and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the
God of Jacob and the sweet psalmist of Israel said, Notice what he
said, the spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was
in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the rock
of Israel spake to me. So now he's telling us that when
he spoke, he was speaking by the spirit of God. And we know
that the spirit of God takes the things of Christ and reveals
them to his church. So, therefore, we see in this
Psalm, by reading 1 Peter 1, where it says that the prophets
of old, and David was a prophet, the prophets of old spoke of
the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.
Therefore, we know that this Psalm must be speaking about
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it is my life's aim, my
own personal life's aim, by God's grace to direct sinners to Christ
alone, to Christ alone. In 2 Corinthians 4, it says in
verse 5, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord. Remember,
that's what John the Baptist's desire was. He said, he must
increase, but I must decrease. And the Apostle Paul, who spoke
these words in 2 Corinthians 4, 5, he said, we preach not
ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves, your servants,
for Jesus' sake. We are sent by Christ to serve
you in the gospel and to preach Christ. He says, for God, who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So that's where God's glory is
seen. in Christ and in him alone. And Paul goes on in verse 7 of
2 Corinthians 4, he says, we have this treasure in earthen
vessels. We are the earthen vessels, but the treasure is that the
excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. So all
that Paul did, he did by the power that God gave to him and
he preached Christ in that way. Now there is a tremendous, a
tremendous heaven-sent and heaven-given comfort in Psalm 31. In verse 15, look at verse 15
of Psalm 31. He says, my times are in thy
hand. My times are in thy hand. I was
turning this phrase over and over again in my mind. All of
my times are in thy hand. As believers, we know that's
true. In Hebrews chapter nine, it says, it is appointed. unto
man once to die. Our death is in God's hand. The time of our death is in God's
hands. The time of our birth is in God's hands. The time when God is gracious to us and
sends the gospel to us and reveals Christ in us, that's in God's
hands as well. All of the times of our life
are in God's hands. And so that verse here in verse
15, my times are in thy hand, is very true. and very comforting
to all of God's people. Tremendous, tremendous comforting
to know that everything in my life is in God's hands. And we
can apply this to the same principle here from Romans 8, 28. And we
know that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose. And in Ecclesiastes
chapter three, it says, there's a time for every season under
heaven. And we know that all those times listed in Ecclesiastes
chapter three, a time to live, a time to die, a time to be born
and so on, all those times are in God's hands. God is the clock. He's the reference of all of
human history, all of creation. It all ticks according to his
purpose. And if we get that, then as believers,
we will look to the Lord and trust Him for it. So that's the
first thing. My birth, my life, my parents,
when I hear the gospel, where I hear the gospel, my wife, my
children, my grandchildren, where I live, my home, my church, my
brothers and sisters and my brothers and sisters in Christ, all of
my relations, the entire course of my life and the timing of
it to the day of my death are all in Christ's hand. and knowing
that he is almighty and full of saving compassion and grace
and mercy, that he undertook in all things to save a people
for himself by the will of God. though in themselves and in ourselves
we are sinful, and that he determined before and brings about and orchestrates
all things for the good of his own, therefore by his faithfulness
and by his unchanging person and word, by all that he is and
by all that he has done, we take comfort as a no-account sinner
to trust ourselves into his hands as he has promised us to do,
to save us from our sins, don't we? And so that's the way the
Psalm opens up. He says in verse one, in thee,
O Lord, do I put my trust. These are comforting words. All
of our life is in God's hands. Now notice when he says in verse
one, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust, that this trust in
God rises to the highest possible level in this Psalm. Look at
verse five. He says, into thine hand I commit
my spirit. So we talked about trust in the
last two Bible studies on Psalm 31, verse one. And we talked
about how trusting God is committing ourselves into his hands. We
commit the course of our life, we commit our life, we commit
our salvation, we commit our career, we commit everything
into His hand. And when you commit something,
entrust something to the Lord, What we're doing is we're depending
upon him. We're depending upon him to fulfill
the obligation he put himself under by his promises to do everything
for his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. So trusting God is simply
taking God at his word and relying on him and depending upon him
to fulfill his word and expecting him to do so, so that we don't
just trust him without some personal contact. We trust him as one
who comes to him in prayer, asking him to take us. to receive us,
to accept us, to take our case and our person and bear us up
to bear our case and our cause as His own case and cause. so
that he might save us in his mercy and in his grace. He has
revealed himself as full of mercy and grace and willing and able
to save sinners to the uttermost. And so we, as sinners needing
salvation to the uttermost, come to him asking him to save us
to the uttermost. That's what trust is. It's coming
to God and laying ourselves upon his word
as upon himself and asking him to take us as Ruth asked Boaz
to cover her with the mantle of his robe and to redeem her
and to be her husband. So that was an example of what
believers do when we come to Christ. Remember the woman at
the well? Jesus told her, give me to drink,
give me a drink. And she said so many arguments
like, why are you asking me? I'm a Samaritan. Why are you
asking me? I'm a woman. Why would you be
asking me for a drink? And Jesus got her attention back
on the track. He said, if you knew the gift
of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have
asked him and he would have given you living water. And this was
startling, amazingly and wonderfully startling to her. But the conversation
goes on until she finally, the Lord finally reveals himself
to her as the Christ. And he confirmed it to her. She
said, we know that when Messiah comes, he'll tell us all things.
And he said, I that speak to you am he. I'm the one who is
the Messiah. And with that revelation of Christ
to her heart, When he revealed himself to her, she left her
water pot and went her way. And in doing that, the Lord Jesus
fulfilled his request to her for a drink, didn't he? Give
me a drink." She couldn't, but he saved her. And his saving
her was doing the will of God. And he told his disciples when
they returned, they said, Master, eat. Don't you need to eat? He
said, No, I have meat to eat that you know not of. For my
meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his
work. So his work was to save sinners. He saved the woman. He was fed. He took a drink from
the well of the one given to him as a husband only drinks
from his wife. So the Lord Jesus Christ was
receiving refreshment in saving this sinner. And so when we trust
the Lord, we're asking him Think about this now. By God's grace,
when we trust the Lord, we're asking Him to do what is already
in His heart to do, which is to save us, right? That's His
desire. That's His meat and drink to
do that. And so as sinners, we're depending upon Him, who is the
fountain of living waters, to give us that water of life. that
salvation that he alone provides by opening up himself in sacrifice
and offering to give it to us. And so these things circulate
and swirl around in our minds as we consider these words in
thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. But getting us back now to this
question about who did David write this psalm, it's true that
as believers, we can take the words of this psalm as the truth,
as concerning God and his people, but we have to understand that
God's word to us as believers is given to us in our head, in
the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the words of this Psalm concern
the Lord Jesus Christ. But since they concern him, they
concern him not by himself alone, but as him with his people. And
so we see, In this psalm, when he says, into thine hand I commit
my spirit, he wasn't just committing his own spirit to the Lord, he
was committing himself with his people to the Lord. And so Stephen,
when he prayed in Acts chapter 7, when he was dying, he also
used the same words. He said, into thy hands I commit
my spirit. Only he said that to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so we also read in this Psalm,
in verse five, he said, into thy hand, thine hand, I commit
my spirit. But notice the next part. Thou
hast redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth. Thou hast redeemed
me, O Lord God of truth." Did the Lord Jesus Christ, was He
ever in debt and needed a Redeemer to ransom Him from that debt? No, He Himself was the Redeemer
and He gave Himself a ransom for many. Then why, if these
words are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, would He speak,
would He say them to God as the one being redeemed? Well again,
because when God speaks of Christ in this psalm and throughout
scripture, He speaks of Him not as Himself alone, but as Himself
with His people. So when He says, Thou hast redeemed
me, O Lord God of truth, He's speaking about the entire body
of Christ that is one with Him, those He's married to. Remember
Ephesians 5? A man who loves his wife loves
himself and his wife and he are one body, one flesh, one bone. So he's one with his people.
And this is this is revealed throughout scripture that the
Lord Jesus Christ has so taken his people to himself, not only
in his nature, does he have the same nature, but in his work,
His work was for them, his work was to God for them, so that
all that he did, he did to God for them, and all that he is,
he is, God is in him for them. So he's a complete redeemer,
the perfect redeemer. Okay, so at the outset we must
observe that this psalm is a prophecy of David concerning Christ. Remember
Jesus said in Luke 24, 44, he says that he opened the scriptures
and he spoke to his disciples about himself in the law, in
the prophets, and in the psalms. the things concerning himself.
And in Hebrews chapter 10, again, just to bring these things to
your memory, it says in the volume of the book, it is written of
me to do thy will, O God. And that was concerning the Lord
Jesus Christ. So scripture speaks of Christ,
of his sufferings and his glory that followed his sufferings.
And it speaks of him in union with his people so that what
he did, they did in him. and what he received from God
and what he obtained and what he did, like his eternal redemption,
he accomplished it and obtained it for them. And this is so comforting. So that when we read this psalm
as concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, it doesn't diminish the
comfort that it brings to us, it heightens it. Because we could
never pray perfectly, could we? We could never pray aright. We
don't have the wisdom. We don't have the desires that
we should have. And we could never trust God
perfectly. We don't commit ourselves to
Him perfectly. The best of saints don't do it
perfectly. Remember Job? The whole book
of Job? Job struggled with this matter
of trust. And even though in Job, I think
it was chapter 13 or so, he says, though he slay me, yet will I
trust him. Yet he didn't. He didn't trust him perfectly.
He said that he did, but throughout he's questioning, well, why don't
you take my life? He's questioning God's purpose
and things. He didn't commit himself wholly to the Lord as
Christ did. So no man ever trusts God perfectly,
not any person in this life. We live with a mixture of faith
and doubt. We don't fully commit ourselves
to the Lord as we ought to. We should. I'm not making excuses. I'm not giving us a license not
to do right. But it's just a fact. So the
comfort that comes from the psalm doesn't come from hearing how
we ought to trust God and then we find ourselves increasingly
trusting him. The comfort comes that one stood
for us as one with us, and he prayed, he trusted God, he submitted
himself under the most excruciating sufferings, and he obeyed God
under the most demanding commands, which was to give his life for
his enemies, those who were in themselves enemies of God, he
gave his life for them in love and laid it down. Now, that's
something we could never attain to. But that's what this psalm
is speaking about, the Lord Jesus Christ as our surety, as the
one who stood for us. So we see this at the outset,
when he says, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, as
he says in Luke 23. Again, I want to reiterate this,
to commit the spirit, my spirit to God is the ultimate expression
of trust, isn't it? We're saying, I cannot keep this
spirit in death. You have to take me. You have
to bear me up. You have to carry me and bring
me to yourself. Well, I'm helpless to do this.
And so the Lord Jesus Christ as man utterly rolled himself
upon Jehovah. In Psalm 22, 8, that's the word
that's used there. He trusted in the Lord, that's
what it means. He rolled himself, the entire weight of the success
of his work and his salvation and his resurrection, he rolled
himself upon his God and Father. Now, considering these things,
we see that there's at least three very important lessons
to be made from this. First of all, that Christ fulfilled
his Father's will to become the author of eternal salvation for
his people, to be perfected as their author, the author of their
eternal salvation, in his suffering and humiliation, and in that,
trusting God, his Father. That's the first lesson we see
here. The Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled his Father's will in trusting
himself to him, and the success of his life and death to his
Father, to his God and Father as a man. He did that and he
did it perfectly. That's the first lesson. Second,
the second lesson, if Christ so trusted If the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, who was a perfect man, so trusted God,
that He committed everything to Him, He trusted His Word,
so that His Word, after 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness,
Satan coming to tempt Him, and Satan asked Him, if You're the
Son of God, then turn these stones into bread. He could have. But
his objective wasn't to prove that he was the son of God, because
he answered that temptation with, it is written, man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word of God that comes out of
the mouth of God. So the Lord Jesus Christ willingly
took the place of his people as a man. He didn't one time
try to elevate himself. He made himself of no reputation
in order that he might, as a man, fulfill God's word and will and
live upon God and his word through faith, just like we have to live
upon God by faith. So if Christ so trusted as a
man, how much more do we need to trust God? How much more should
we who are sinful and not only human, like Christ took our nature,
but how much more ought we to trust Him since we have such
great need of salvation? So if the Master, our Lord and
Master, has done this, how much more ought we to follow Him who
are but dust and ashes? with the greatest confidence,
we are told to trust God, and with the greatest expectation
and hope that in following him, the Lord Jesus Christ will fulfill
his word. God has done this in him. So that, When we consider this,
our need to trust God as He did when He was delivered, when His
times were in God's hands, when He was born, when He grew up
as a young person and when He became an adult and began His
ministry and went about teaching and preaching and healing and
suffered all manner of accusations against Himself, ultimately leading
to His sufferings and death, And then his resurrection, his
exaltation, if he trusted God in all of that, and he was delivered,
he was raised up and exalted in answer from God to him with
his people. If He did this, then it causes
us to think about our own need to be dependent upon the Lord,
doesn't it? We go to Him in prayer and we
ask Him to take us. He burdened Himself with His
people and He came to take all and bear all that is theirs before
God for them. And he took their case and fulfilled
their obedience and bore their sins and took them away too.
And so we also want to trust God like he did. So we ask him,
Lord, give me this faith. Give me this trust. And in this
trust that you've caused me to trust you with, then fulfill
your will and your word for my salvation and wait on the Lord. We wait on the Lord when we ask
him and trust him. We wait, don't we? We don't go
about to undertake to do what only God can do. We wait for
him. We have no other hope. He's he
alone can save us from our sins. He alone can produce and has
produced a righteousness by which we are accepted and justified
before God. Only He could be given the reward
of eternal life and eternal inheritance for His work. So we ask God to
treat us for Christ's sake. Okay. So I want to look at these
things with you tonight in this psalm. And I've given more examples
of this or more words about this in the handout that I sent to
you by email. if you want to look at that.
Let's look at Psalm 31 now and read through the first three
verses. Again, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never
be ashamed. To be ashamed means you trusted
in something and it failed you. that he trusted in God, he expected
God to do what he had trusted him to do, which was to uphold
him and to deliver him from his enemies and to bring him to success
in all that he undertook in God's name. And so he was asking him,
don't let me be disappointed in my trust. Now, when we pray
this way, we're asking God not to allow us to be put to shame. We deserve to be put to shame,
but we're asking God, don't expose me in my shame, and don't expose
me as I deserve to be exposed in shame. and rather cover me,
wash me from my sins and cover me with the righteous robe of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says in this never
be ashamed, we could also say it this way, don't let me be
ashamed of you, Lord, before men. I don't want to be ashamed
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't want to be ashamed of
his gospel. In fact, Believers, and maybe
this isn't the right word to use, but believers are actually
proud of the gospel. And now that sounds like a contradiction. How can you be proud of the gospel?
Well, we're proud of our Savior, aren't we? We boast in Christ. We boast in what he has done.
We boast in his ability, his wisdom, his righteousness, his
love and grace and mercy to sinners. And we boast of him before sinners
so that they might find their all in him also. So we're proud
of the gospel because the gospel gives all credit to Christ. And
even though we're nothing and it exposes us as nothing, it
also reveals to us that in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're perfect
and complete in him. So we have everything about the
gospel to boast in. So we don't want to be ashamed
in that way either. We want to be... I can't think
of the right word. Exuberant? Is that a word? Anyway, we want to be very glad
about the gospel. And then he says, deliver me
in thy righteousness. Now I want you to understand
that when God delivered Christ, it was a righteous thing. It
was righteousness when he delivered his son from death. Remember
Romans 4.25, he was delivered for our offenses, and that was
righteous, and he was raised again for our justification. Why was it righteous for God
to deliver him for our offenses? Because the Lord Jesus Christ,
in love, stood as surety for his people. He engaged with his
Father before time began, as Judah did with Jacob. on behalf
of Benjamin, Christ engaged with his father on behalf of all those
God gave to him in the covenant of grace. And he said to his
father, with regards to his people, those that God loved as his own
children, adopted them to be his own children by Jesus Christ,
the Lord Jesus Christ in that covenant, as we read in Genesis
43, verses eight and nine, he said, I will be surety for them. And so in Hebrews 7, 22, it says,
Christ is the surety of the better covenant. So the Lord Jesus Christ
is our surety. And in that covenant of grace
before time began, he stood for his people and he became surety
for them. And that was a righteous thing.
It was an act of love. which fulfills the law that he
pledged himself and didn't go back. He never took it back.
He couldn't change. He obligated himself. He didn't
obligate someone else. And he obligated himself to magnify
God's law and to answer all of God's justice and then to make
way for the flowing out of the river of his grace and love to
sinners who deserve nothing from God and to do it to the glory
of God. That was a righteous thing that
he did. But he also says, deliver me in the righteousness because
he had fulfilled God's will. He had done the work God had
given him to do. It was a righteous thing. Therefore,
having been delivered for our offenses by the will of God and
having fulfilled that that mandate, that command that God gave to
him, as he said in John 10, 17, that God, his father had commanded
him to lay his life down, that he might take it again. So having
fulfilled that edict from God to lay his life down for his
people in order to save them by the sacrifice of himself,
he could say then, therefore, deliver me in thy righteousness
because it would be a righteous thing for God now to raise him
from the dead because he did the will of God and exalted,
he didn't exalt, he lifted up in the plain view for all to
see the very righteousness of God in the work that He did,
which was His Father's will and work. So it was a righteous thing. But also for the believer now,
because we're applying these words both to Christ and his
people, because these are obviously spoken by Christ, therefore they're
spoken of him and his people join to him. But he says, deliver
me in thy righteousness, because the righteousness of Christ is
the very righteousness, the very personal righteousness that belongs
to every believer by the gift of God's grace. In Romans 5,
17, the gift of righteousness is that which Christ worked out
as the last and second and last Adam for us. What he did, we
were credited with by the gift of God's grace. And that's the
only way we can be accepted and approved of God, even justified
in the presence of God in all of his holiness, because God
sees not our works nor our sins, which were washed away by his
blood, but the obedience of his son. So he says here, deliver
me in thy righteousness. And then in verse two, he says,
bow down thine ear to me, deliver me speedily, for thou are, be
thou my strong rock for a house of defense to save me, for thou
art my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for thy name's sake,
lead me and guide me. OK. So the first thing I have to
say here is that he asked the Lord to bow his ear to me. Bow your ear to me. Bow down,
he says, bow down thine ear to me. God is high. We are low. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, as a man, made himself of no reputation. Therefore,
he prays, bow down your ear to me. God is sovereign. And he
must condescend, he must humble himself, it says in Psalm 113
verse 6, he must humble himself to even consider the things that
are in the heaven and in the earth. So the creator lowers
himself to even consider what he has created in this world
and much more because he created man who has corrupted himself.
So Psalm 113 verse 6 says, who humbleth himself to behold the
things that are in heaven and in the earth. If God did not
bow his ear, If He didn't bow His ear to hear His people in
sovereign grace, we would be left in helpless despair, wouldn't
we? We would be left in utter darkness
without help, without salvation, and without life at all. We would
be left without deliverance from our sinfulness, but this is the
very thing we are taught and compelled to do, which is to
call on Him to do for us what He has said we need. We need
him to bow down. We need him to humble himself,
to lower himself from his exalted throne and give attention, give
ear to our prayer. And that's the way the Lord Jesus
Christ prayed. What a humble. place our Savior
took. What humility. He said himself
in Matthew 11, he said, I am meek and lowly of heart. And
he was, wasn't he? Because he took the case of his
people as his own before God. And he stooped to that level
of a man in need of God's ear. Bow down your ear to me. And
so he says here, when we ask God to bow to hear
us as believers, we're asking Him to hear the things that we
need in His own view of things, aren't we? In other words, I
don't even know what to pray as I ought to. And so we rely
on Him to take the need of our heart and life and to carry it
into the throne room of His grace where Christ sits and has sprinkled
His blood on that throne. and therefore receive us and
hear us and our need for Christ's sake and to answer that need
of our heart. That's the way we as believers
come to the Lord. We don't come as if we understand
our needs or how God ought to answer our needs. We present
ourselves to him and trust that He will look upon Christ and
see us in Him and view us in Him and receive us for Christ's
sake. And to hear our need in our life now that we would be
enabled to walk and live upon Christ by faith, by depending
upon Him, by trusting Him. So that in all of our lives we
consider all that occurs to be from His hand and to open every
door for us in our life to accomplish His will for us, especially in
our deliverance from our sins, whatever course that takes throughout
our lives to direct us to the Lord Jesus Christ. So we ask
him to hear the need of our heart, even though we cannot and do
not express it adequately or often enough or urgently as we
ought to or earnestly enough. When you read this in verse two,
he says, bow down thine ear, deliver me speedily. There was
an urgency to it. Don't wait. I need you now. And
this is a bold way to pray, isn't it? We're taught to just wait
on the Lord, but here He says, I need you to deliver me right
away. Urgent, an urgent need. Therefore,
when we see these words, we view our Lord Jesus Christ in this
cry, and we see His cry as the cry God heard from Him for us. And then, as those saved in this
way, and those who are needy, we cry, as He taught us, in any
and all trouble, we say, hear me, O Lord, bow down your ear
to me, just as the Lord Jesus Christ prayed. If He was heard,
if He cried, and He was heard, When he stood for us as the author
of our eternal salvation, then we're given a warrant based on
his prayer and his being accepted by God for us that we can then
express the needs of our heart when we come to God in prayer.
And it's a wonderful thing. What do we pray for? What do
we want him to hear? What is our need? It is for God. We want what God loves to do
to magnify his exceeding great power. And what is that? That
he delights to show mercy, delights to show grace towards needy and
helpless and hopeless sinners. And so when we ask, we always
ask with a prayer that we know has got sin in it. It's full
of sin. We don't ask earnestly or urgently
enough or faithfully enough. So we ask the Lord to receive
the prayers of Christ for us, our intercessor, our mediator,
our advocate. There's so much in our prayer
that we need to be sorry for. But here by the comforter given
by Christ to his church and by the will of our God and Savior,
our true need is revealed. And he himself gives and spoke
the words that are put here for us to take and borrow. Lord,
bow your ear. Condescend to consider me. and
view me in the Lord Jesus Christ, find the need of my heart and
meet it in Christ. OK, I'm going to skip some of
my notes here to get to this last part because of time. He
says in verse three, verse two, two, he says, Be thou my strong
rock for a house of defense to save me, for thou art my rock
and my fortress. Therefore, for thy name's sake,
lead me and guide me. You're my rock." How does he
know God is his rock? Because the Lord made himself
his rock. That's how. And it says, God made himself
his rock. Therefore, he says, for your
name's sake, lead me and guide me. Now, this term rock is frequently
used in the psalm. And in fact, it was used in the
wilderness. Remember when Moses led Israel
through the wilderness? God led him to the rock at Horeb,
and the people were thirsty. And what did God say to Moses?
He told him, take the rod in your hand and go to the rock
and smite the rock. And he did. On that first occasion,
he went to the rock and he smote the rock. And what happened?
Water came out of the rock. And so the water that came out
of the rock was to satisfy the thirst of Israel. But it wasn't
just one time that the water came out of the rock. It kept
flowing. It says in 1 Corinthians 10 that
that rock followed them. In other words, the rock that
Moses hit with his rod in the wilderness was with Israel throughout
their wilderness sojourn. Now, what else did God give in
the wilderness? Well, he gave them all sorts
of things, but the other thing primarily he gave to them was
manna, remember, for their sustenance. And manna was bread from heaven.
And both of these things, the bread from heaven and the water
from the rock, they physically took and ate and drank. But again,
in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, the apostle Paul, speaking by
the Spirit of God, says that that was a spiritual rock that
followed them. And the manna was spiritual bread. So it wasn't just physical. In
fact, it was pointing to the spiritual reality of bread and
the spiritual reality of water from the rock. And so what we
see there that God put in the Old Testament is that as God
sent manna from heaven, so he would send his son to be the
bread of life to his people. And as he sent them manna throughout
their wilderness sojourn, so God gives Christ and him crucified
to his people throughout their lives in this world as they live
upon him by faith. Does that make sense? God gives
Christ crucified the bread of life to his people to take and
eat and drink of by faith. And that's the way they live
in this world. The Son of God loved me and gave himself for
me. I live by his life in me and I live by the faith of the
Son of God who did love me and gave himself for me. That's the
manna. And the rock is what? Well, the
rock was that from which water came that they drank and their
thirst was satisfied. So in all of these things, what
are we seeing here that the rock and the manna refer to? Well,
they refer to Christ and him crucified. When Moses hit the
rock, the water came out. When God crucified his son, the
water of the gospel and the spirit of God flowed. from God to his
people so that they would hear and believe and God would give
them life from the dead. He would birth them as his sons
and they would believe on him. They would drink of that water. They would take in the gospel
by the Spirit of God and they would live. Jesus said, the words
I speak to you are spirit and they are life. But what we see
then as concerning the rock and the bread is that we see that
everything concerning these elements, the bread and the rock in the
wilderness, we're speaking of God in Christ to his people for
their eternal life. and that they would live upon
Him by faith, Christ and Him crucified, the object of their
faith, the sustaining life to them as they live upon Christ
in this world, living by faith on the Son of God. So the rock
therefore, as the bread, represents God in Christ in full supply,
in saving supply to his people, given to them to depend upon
him and trust him and look to him for everything. This is the
conclusion we have to draw, because the fullness of the Godhead is
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are complete in Him. And that's what faith does. Our
faith, God-given faith, looks to Christ for everything, and
we find everything in Him. All of God's purposes, all of
God's righteousness, all of God's eternal life is in him. He's
the way, the truth and the life. Everything we know about God,
our coming to God, our access to God, everything is in the
Lord Jesus Christ and it's in him in its fullness. So the full
supply of all God gives to his people is God in Christ. Do we see that? And so he says
here, for thy name's sake, lead me and guide me. Now, God's name
is who God is, but it's who God is as summarized or as identified
with that name God has given himself. And throughout the Old
Testament scripture, God is using his name Jehovah with an appendage
to it to reveal himself by his name. For example, Genesis 22,
God told Abraham, Abraham told his son Isaac, speaking
by the Spirit of God, that God would see to it. He would see
the need and he would see to meeting the need for providing
the lamb. He says God will provide himself a lamb and that God would
not only see to the need but he would look upon that lamb
and therefore he would be seen in it. So Jehovah Jireh, that's
what that means. Jehovah Jireh is a name of God.
It reveals something about God insofar as he is to his people. For thy name's sake, and so many
other names of God in the Old Testament, such as Jehovah Nisi,
the Lord my banner. Christ is our boast, he's our
glory. He's the one, the banner that
goes before us and conquers our enemies, as it says in Exodus
17, 15. And so throughout the scripture, the Lord is my shepherd.
All these names of God are God revealing himself to us in the
Lord Jesus Christ. So that when we get to the New
Testament, his name is what? Jesus, for he shall save his
people from their sins. He's the Redeemer, He's the Mediator,
He's the Surety, He's all these names. And so when God says here,
you're my rock in prayer, the Lord Jesus Christ, and believers
in Him, you are my rock, my fortress, therefore for thy name's sake,
lead me and guide me. He's saying, do it for Christ's
sake. Isn't that God's name? The Lord
Jesus Christ. is the fullness of the Godhead.
So whatever we know of God, we can only know of Him when we
understand the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the truth, remember? He's the way, the truth, and
the life. Everything about God is seen in Christ. He's the brightness
of God's glory, the express image of His person. And so so this
prayer here is all that God is in Christ is given to his people. Think about that. All that God
is, he is to his people in Christ. There's nothing held back. Everything
that God is, he is to his people in Christ and everything that
Christ is. He is for his people to God,
you see. And then everything that Christ
is, he has given himself to his people, not only for them, but
to them by coming to live in them by his spirit and ministering
to them in their hearts from his word in the gospel. And so
we see this even in this psalm. And I'll have to close there
tonight. We'll go on in this psalm. I didn't want to try to
get through this psalm all again in one time, but I wanted to
try to heighten our awareness of the fact that when God speaks
from his word in the psalms, he's speaking the message here
is about the Lord Jesus Christ. crucified, our full and complete
supply from God for our life, for truth, to know Him, because
to know God in Jesus Christ is eternal life. There is no life
apart from Him. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you
for your word. We pray, Lord, that as we read
it and think about it, that you would make yourself known to
us. We would see these words applying to the Lord Jesus Christ
and see that in him he prayed to God for us because he didn't
pray for himself alone, but for all of his people with him. and
help us to see that our prayers, and the faith that we must have,
and the obedience that we need, and even the ransom price for
our redemption, all of this is met in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thank you for this psalm, and help us, Lord, to truly know
you from your word. Speak to our hearts, don't just
speak into our ears, but into our very souls, that you would
open our hearts, and we would truly trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
In his name we pray, amen.