Psalm chapter six is where I
want to look tonight with you. Psalm chapter six, let's go ahead
and read this entire psalm, it's just 10 verses. I like these
first few psalms because they are short and they fit nicely
into short time that we have in our Bible study. Psalm chapter
six in the heading, or the subheading under the title of the psalm,
it says, to the chief musician, On Niggunoth upon Shemunoth,
a psalm of David. I don't recall what those first
two words mean, but I will probably remember to look them up after
the Bible study, and you can do the same. But you can see
here that it is a psalm of David. Most of the psalms are written
by David. He said so in Psalm 23, that
he was the sweet psalmist of Israel, and that the Spirit of
God spoke by him. Now, when David spoke, as we
have seen in all of the other Psalms, and we've looked at this,
that he spoke by the Spirit of God and he spoke concerning Christ. Now that's very insignificant.
It's most comforting, as we're going to see as we look at this
together. So let's read this together. Verse one, Psalm chapter
six. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine
anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy
upon me, O Lord, for I am weak, O Lord, heal me, for my bones
are vexed or troubled, sore troubled. My soul is also sore vexed or
sore troubled. But Thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver my soul. O save me for Thy mercy's sake. For in death there is no remembrance
of thee, in the grave who shall give thee thanks? I am weary
with my groaning all the night, make I my bed to swim. I water
my couch with my tears, mine eye is consumed because of grief. It waxeth old because of all
mine enemies. Depart from me, all you workers
of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.
The Lord hath heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Let all mine enemies be ashamed
and sore vexed. Let them return and be ashamed
suddenly. Now you can see from this psalm
that the one who is praying here, the one who is crying out to
the Lord, is first of all concerned that God would not rebuke him.
He prays, do not rebuke me in thine anger, or chasten me in
thy hot displeasure, but have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I
am weak. Heal me, for my bones are vexed. In other words, this This sickness,
this plague is in his bones and his soul is greatly troubled. He says in the next verse, my
soul is also sore vexed and he is pleading to God for mercy.
So that's the first two or three verses there. He says in verse
four, deliver my soul and save me for thy mercy's sake. Throughout
the Bible you'll see this, this is the effective way to pray.
Pray that God would act for his own sake, for his own glory,
for his own purpose, to accomplish his own will by his power and
for his glory alone. It's always a prayer, a prayer
that is spoken in scripture like this is a prayer for God to receive
glory, for God to do his will, and there's no better way to
pray than that. And then in verse 5, he says he prays that he might
be delivered from death because those who go down into the grave
have no ability to remember or give thanks to God. He doesn't
want to be one of those. He says that he's weary. with
his groaning all night. His tears are many so that his
bed and his couch are filled with his tears. And then he says
his eye is consumed with grief because he has grown old. He waxeth old because of all
of his enemies. He has many enemies. And so then
he cries out against them to depart. In verse eight, notice
verse eight carefully. "'Depart from me, all you workers
of iniquity, "'for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.'"
So this man, whoever this man is, is crying out to God, and
then he turns to his enemies, and he says, you, you, workers
of iniquity, depart from me, because the Lord has heard the
voice of my weeping. God has looked upon his tears,
heard his cry, and has answered him. Verse 9, the Lord has heard
my supplication, the Lord will receive my prayer. And then he
says to his enemies, let all my enemies be ashamed and sore
troubled or vexed. Let them return and be ashamed
suddenly. So this prayer is obviously by
a man who can speak against workers of iniquity in contrast to himself. And who can that be? Who is it
that says in the New Testament, depart from me, you workers of
iniquity. Does that phrase sound familiar
to you? Let me read these words to you
in the 13th chapter of the book of Luke. In Luke 13, you'll recognize
these words when we read them there. He says this in verse
24, Jesus Christ says this, strive
to enter in at the straight gate. The straight means compressed
and narrow, difficult to fit through and get. Can't find it
and you can't get through it. It's very narrow and hard to
find. Strive to enter in at the straight
gate. Why is it so narrow? Well, because sinners can't find
it. God has to show it to us. And there's only one way. It's
this way, through this gate. He says, for many, I say to you,
will seek to enter in and shall not be able. Many want to go
to heaven. No one wants to go by the way of Christ until the
Lord saves us. Verse 25. Jesus says, he goes
on, when once the master of the house has risen up and has shut
to the door and you began to stand without and to knock at
the door saying, Lord, Lord, open to us and he shall answer
and say to you, I know you not whence you are. I don't know
from where you are. I don't know you and I don't
know from where you are. I know nothing about you in a
way of saving grace. Verse 26, then shall you begin
to say, we have eaten and drunk in thy presence and thou hast
taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you,
I know you not whence you are. Depart from me all you workers
of iniquity. Now I'm connecting Psalm 6 verse
8 with this verse in verse 27 to show you that the Lord alone,
Christ the Lord alone, can say to sinners to depart all you
workers of iniquity. And in the context of Luke 13,
you can see he's talking to the religion of the Jews in his day,
those who held to what? salvation by works, rewards,
their own work for rewards from God, this attitude that God owes
me something for my service, and this other attitude that
opposes Christ's work and His righteousness because that would
displace my own honor from men and before men. I have these
people here, naturally, like we all do, have confidence before
God for what they do, their wisdom, and what they do in religion. And this was the religion of
the Jews. It's the religion of all false gospels. In Revelation
11, verse 8, God compares the Jerusalem of Jesus' day that
crucified him with Sodom and Egypt. And you know what God
did to Sodom, and you know what he did to Egypt when he destroyed
that land in order to bring his people out of it. And so we see
throughout scripture the condemnation of the religion of Jews because
he compares it to the perversity and the wickedness of Egypt and
Sodom. And here in Psalm chapter 6,
the enemies are the enemies to whom Christ speaks and says,
you workers of iniquity, depart from me, because the Lord has
heard the voice of my weeping. Now this helps us to anchor this
psalm, doesn't it? It helps us to see that this
psalm is about the Lord. First of all, the Lord Jesus
Christ. But when we read the Psalms,
as we have been doing now, and we understand them to be first
and foremost the prayers of our Lord Jesus Christ, spoken in
prophecy and fulfilled by him while he was on the earth, when
we say that, sometimes we feel like we've lost somehow, we've
lost something in the connection between the Psalms and our own
experience. Is that not a temptation? Someone
asked me the other day about this. Can I also pray these Psalms?
Well, let's think about that now. Think about it very carefully.
It's difficult. I want you to understand when
we read this psalm. Look at the first verse. O Lord, rebuke me
not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have
mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak. O Lord, heal me, for my
bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed. But
thou, O Lord, how long? He's been crying a long time. Thou, O Lord, how long? How long will I cry? How long
will I feel in my bones the distress of your hand? And it feels to
me that your rebuke is done in anger. and you're chasing me
in hot displeasure. He cries for mercy under the
hand, the heavy hand of God's chastening. And he cries, he
says, cries out, I'm weak. I can't bear this. Heal me. My
bones are troubled. Now, when we read these words,
we immediately, we can have some faint connection, some faint
similarities in our own experiences to these things, can't we? But
can we truly say these things of ourselves to the extent that
they are here? Think about this. It's difficult
for us to begin to describe how we feel because of the guilt
of our sin, isn't it? David said it this way in Psalm
32, verse 3. He said, when I kept silence,
my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. He
was like a bear crying out with his foot in the trap. His bones
were sore. His very bones were afflicted
because of his sin, and because he kept silence under his sin,
God afflicted his soul. That's what David felt because
of the guilt of his sin. It's difficult for us to describe
what the sense of our guilt before God makes us feel, isn't it?
But it's absolutely impossible for us to describe what God thinks
of our sin unless we can take His own word and hold up the
Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified because that says it all, doesn't
it? What God did to His Son expresses beyond all description what God
thinks of our sin. And so, when we read these words
here, O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten
me in thy hot displeasure, and so on, what we're hearing here
is that in this Psalm, The comfort we need and the deliverance we
need from God, the supplications that we need to make or that
we do make in our prayers are answered, how? In the expression
of God in the prayers and the sufferings of His own Son in
our nature. So what we're seeing here is
that the Lord Jesus Christ, as our surety, took our full obligations,
he took responsibility for us, he took responsibility of fulfilling
God's requirements for us, and he took them in such a way that
he became what he was not. He was not flesh, he was not
blood, but he became man what he was not. He who does not change
did not change, but took on our nature in order that he might
do what he could only do in our nature, which is to bear our
sins in his own body on the tree and suffer for them. And in that
suffering, express these words so that we would see God's wrath
has been lifted. Our sins have been lifted from
us. God's wrath has been poured out on him because he took them,
he bore them, and he owned them and confessed them. And therefore
what we see here is the comfort for all of our sin, all of our
struggles are fulfilled in and expressed here by the sufferings
of our substitute as our surety. And this is very important. We
find the blessed remedy for our sins and our plight under our
sins in the substitutionary sufferings and the satisfaction of our surety
to God that he made for our sins. He took full responsibility for
our sins and for our obedience. That's why 2 Corinthians 5.21
comes to bear here. He who knew no sin, was made
sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him." That's what this is all about. And that's the comfort
we need, isn't it? That's the salvation God required
and gave for us, that He provided for us. We need that. That's
what we truly need. We can't express. We don't even
know. Our understanding of our own
ruin and the need for our remedy is so faint that many times we'll
go out throughout the day. It's like, I didn't even think
about the Lord hardly, it seems. I didn't read the Word. I find
out that I haven't prayed all day. Maybe I've gone a long time. Who knows how long? But here
the Lord Jesus Christ is not slow. He's crying out. He's crying continually. He's
crying a long time with his patience. He's never expressing a discontentment
with God, but he's always going to Him with his plight. He's
going to Him because with our sins laid upon Him, they became
a heavy burden for Him. He feels the guilt of our sins.
He feels the separation from God for our sins. And He feels
the shame of our sins that were due to us from God. Remember
in Leviticus 16, the high priest laid his head on that goat. And
he confessed on the head of that goat. He transferred all the
sins of all the children of Israel on that goat. And then he sent
that goat out into the wilderness. Who did that? The high priest.
Who is the goat? It's the Lamb of God. He confessed
our sins over his own head and sent those out to a land not
inhabited where God would remember them no more. That's the separation
he felt because of our sins and the guilt he placed it on himself.
He confessed them as his before God. Think of the shame. He says
in Psalm 69, in verse 20, let me read this to you. In Psalm
chapter 69, in verse 20, he says, Reproach has broken my heart.
and I am full of heaviness, and I looked for some to take pity,
but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. That's amazing,
isn't it? He says in the next verse, they
gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me
vinegar to drink. No one took pity on him. He bore
it all, and he bore it alone, and he felt it on himself because
he's the one who owned our sins and took them away. And so what
we see here in these first few verses and throughout this psalm,
is the prayer of our surety, and that prayer is the prayer,
the substitution of a man for us who took our sins and bore
them. And here we're seeing the anguish
of his soul under that, with those sins, and we see the, what
do we see because of that? Because he suffered, and he suffered
long, and he prayed, and he was heard. What does that mean? It
means that he can sympathize, doesn't it? It means that he
can feel our sufferings, because what we suffer is just the lightweight
affliction of our problems, isn't it? It's just lightweight compared
to what he suffered. Remember in 1 Corinthians 15,
what does it say there? The sting of death is sin. But
thanks be to God, he's taken away the sting, right? So what
do we experience in death? Well, we experience all of the
anguish of death, and the sorrows of death. But what is it? It's
death without a sting. Our sorrows, there's no sting
in our sorrows, because Christ had taken away our sin. And so
the psalmist's prayer here, the Lord Jesus Christ, as is spoken
of Him in prophecy here, is showing us Christ has taken our sting. He's taken it to himself. He
has endured it so that our afflictions and our death have no sting in
them because sin has been taken away. And therefore we can see
this, first of all, that this is the prayer of our suffering
surety who has substituted himself for us under our sins before
God, and he cries there. And then secondly, because he
did that, he is our sympathetic high priest. Let me read this
in Hebrews chapter 2 with you. Hebrews chapter 2 in verse 17. Notice how the Lord here says
this in verse 17, It behooved him, Christ, to be
made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people, for in that he himself has suffered
being tempted Tried, he is able to succor or to come to the aid,
run to the aid of them that are tempted. That's what he's saying
here. We're tried, but what is it compared to his trying? Nothing
in comparison. And we also know this, that it
might be all that we can bear, yet he bore the whole weight
of our guilt and our shame before God. And he took it away. So
that what we suffer is only just a way for God to draw us to himself. What is it when the Lord brings
these things upon us? It's called chastening. Chastening. Notice this in Hebrews chapter
12. He says this in Hebrews chapter 12. He says, verse 6, for whom
the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. So that our suffering, in whatever
form it might be, and most of it is all internal, isn't it?
Just like David, when I kept silence, my bones waxed old because
of my roaring. And here, in Hebrews chapter
12, verse 6, it says whom the Lord loves, he chastens. Remember
the psalmist in Psalm 73, Asaph, he said, I, my foot almost slipped,
I was envious of the wicked, I looked at their prosperity,
I looked at the fact they have no sufferings, and I began to
be covetous of them, and then I remembered, came to my own
senses, as it were, And he said, I realized I was acting as a
beast before thee. The Lord put him in his place,
and he was so thankful. The Lord, because he loves us,
he sets us on the right path, looking to Christ. And that is
our chastening. But in our trouble, we feel that
pain, don't we? We feel distress whenever God's
presence seems distant from us, don't we? We need the light. We need the light of the gospel
to shine. We can't make it happen. We say,
Lord, shine your light. Lord, deliver me from my sin.
I have no power. It seems I have no power. As
long as I believed you, I felt all these good things, and I
still sin. What's wrong? And we feel the
distress of all that. And so he says also in Revelation
321, to him that overcometh will I, I'm sorry, verse 19, as many
as I love I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent.
So this is a great comfort to us. We feel the distress of soul,
but our comfort is that the Lord Jesus Christ has taken it. He's
borne it all. He's taken it away. So we hear
the suffering and the pleadings of our surety. We know he's a
sympathetic high priest. He has become in all things like
us and therefore He can run to the aid of all those who suffer
in whatever form it is, whether it's because we do wrong or because
we are doing the right thing and we suffer wrongfully for
it. The Lord is always there to comfort us. He's experienced
it all. Back to Psalm chapter 6 now. He says, rebuke me not
in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. When
Christ suffered, was he loved of God or was he hated of God? Was God angry with him? Well, these are things that seem
to be in opposition to themselves. How could the Lord both love
and be angry here? Well, you realize that he is
angry with, he poured out his wrath upon his son, but in doing
so, he loved his son. Isn't that so? The Father, it
says in John 13, chapter three, verse 35, the Father loveth the
Son. And in John chapter five, verse
20, it says the Father loveth the Son. This is throughout scripture.
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. So we're certain
that the Father loved the Son and His love never changed. But
that act of Christ, whereby He took our sins, brought Him under
judgment. Didn't it? He had to drink the
bitter cup of the dregs of God's wrath. And he drank it down so
that we might drink the cup of salvation. And therefore, he
had to take away the wrath of God. How? By burying it in himself. But that was an obedience. That
was a submission of glad and willing obedience to God, his
father. And in that suffering, his father
was never more pleased with him. And yet, having borne our sins,
he did experience this, so that he cries out. In Psalm 22, the
same thing. He says it throughout the Psalms, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? Like Job, everything seemed to
collapse in one day. Oh my God, I cry in the daytime,
but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not.
Silence, notice how he justifies God, but thou art holy, O thou
that inhabitest the praises of Israel. And this is throughout
the Psalms. He did suffer. He did feel God's
rebuke. It was a chastening of his soul.
But why? Wasn't it for our peace? It was. In Isaiah 53, he says it this
way. In Isaiah 53, it says, in verse
7, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not
his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumped, so he
openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? He was
cut off. out of the land of the living
for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And it was the
verses above that, verse 5, he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities, notice, and the chastisement
of our peace. what was necessary to take away
our offense before the God we offended, the chastisement for
our peace was put upon him and with his stripes." That's the
peace. I mean, that's the chastisement. The beating he deserved, that
we deserved, came upon him. And by his beating, we are healed. That's what he's saying here.
Lord, don't chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy on
me, O Lord, for I am weak. Lord, heal me, my bones are vexed. Now, if Christ thus felt this,
if he said, I'm weak and troubled, how much weaker are we than he
was? Yet he was weak as a man under
the hand of God because of these judgments upon him. So we see
this. He trusted his God under this
judgment. He never complained. He kept
saying over and over again that he did trust him, that he was
holy, that what he was doing was right. And he subjected himself
in submission willingly, not my will, but thine be done. So
we can see this in many places. Now I've sent this out. I send
out the Bible study notes to you. Hopefully you get those.
And if you get time, you can read through those and you'll
get a lot more text of scripture there. So in verses one and two. In verses one and two, you see
the same thing that's spoken of in Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and
Psalm 69, which we've just read, about how Christ bore the reproach
that was due to us, how he felt the separation of the guilt of
our sins under the outpouring of God's wrath, and how he was
wounded for our transgressions, and by his chastening, God chastening
him, we are healed. We see that here in these first
three verses. And then he goes on. He says in verse three and
four, he says, oh Lord, how long? Return, oh Lord, deliver my soul. Oh, save me for thy mercy's sake.
Here you get the sense that his affliction lasted a long time. And we have a sense of time under
our afflictions. Some people experience it longer
than others. And sometimes we get into these
mind wars and these senses, this sense of being forsaken, and
we become discouraged and depressed. It doesn't seem like we have
motivation. and we lose all sight of things, and then our sins
weigh heavily upon us, and we're slow to respond, and we feel
a greater load upon us, and it seems like the darkness is pressing
in upon us. The Lord Jesus Christ also felt
long suffering. How long, O Lord? So notice again
in this how sympathetic our high priest can be, how he can feel
what we felt, what we feel only to a much higher degree and to
a much longer degree. He felt this. His whole life
was one. He bore our sins and our sorrows
and he was sore troubled. Let me read to you what he says
in Matthew chapter 26. Familiar words in Matthew 26
and verse 36. Then Jesus, Matthew 26, 36, then
cometh Jesus with them to a place called Gethsemane. and said to
the disciples, sit, eat here while I go and pray yonder. See
how he separates from them because he had to endure this alone and
under, and what was he doing in that suffering? Praying. I'm
gonna go pray yonder. Verse 37, and he took with him
Peter and the two sons Zebedee, James and John, and he began
to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, my soul
is exceeding sorrowful. We speak in hyperbole, don't
we? Oh man, it was great, it was
great. Or man, I was really in trouble. We don't know the half of it.
God never speaks with hyperbole. His words are exactly precise
and true. And what does he say? My soul
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. So he says, tear
ye here and watch with me. And he went a little further
and fell on his face and prayed, saying, oh, my father, if it
be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as
I will, but as thou wilt. So, here we see the submission
of Christ under suffering, submitting to God's will, and doing it willingly,
and yet it was at the end of His strength. Spurgeon used to
say, He suffered all that Almighty God could bear with strength
enough, but none to spare. He drank the cup of God's, the
dregs of God's cup of wrath, that we might bear it no more.
The sting was taken away from us, and we now drink the cup
of salvation. All of our troubles are, we find
comfort in all of our troubles, knowing that in our surety, our
sins have been taken away. The sting of death is taken away
from us, our sins, and Christ has conquered our enemies. So
let's go on. Psalm 6 verse 5, he says, for
in death there's no remembrance of thee, in the grave who shall
give thee thanks? I'm weary with my groanings.
All the night make I my bed to swim. I water my couch with my
tears. Mine eyes consume because of
grief. And this sounds a lot like something else in scripture
in Isaiah chapter 38. And you might remember this account
in Isaiah chapter 38 is about King Hezekiah. Remember King
Hezekiah? He got sick. He was, it seemed
like he was doing well. And then all of a sudden he got
sick after all this long time of serving God faithfully, got
sick and he was about to die. And he sent to Isaiah the prophet
and God spoke to Isaiah the prophet and sent this message back to
him. And this was Hezekiah's prayer. He said, In chapter 38 of Isaiah, It says
in verse 9, the writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he had been
sick and was recovered of his sickness, I said, in the cutting
off of my days, I shall go down to the gates of the grave. I
am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not
see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living. I shall
behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. Mine age is departed
and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent. I have cut off like a weaver
my life. He will cut me off with pining
sickness from day even to night. Wilt thou make an end of me?
I reckoned till morning that as a lion, so he will break all
my bones, or he, yeah, he will break all my bones from day even
to night. Wilt thou make an end of me?
This was his attitude. This is what he felt. Verse 11,
like a crane or a swallow did I chatter. I did mourn as a dove,
mine eyes fail with looking upward. There's that long time. Oh Lord,
I'm oppressed. Undertake for me. Verse 15, what
shall I say? He hath both spoken to me and
himself hath done it. I shall go softly all my years
in the bitterness of my soul. Oh Lord, by these things men
live and in all these things is the life of my spirit. So
wilt thou recover me and make me to live. Notice verse 17. The Lord was ready to save me,
therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all
the days of our life in the house of the Lord. So here we see that
Hezekiah fell sick, he thought he was going to die, he's mourning
because of the thought that once he dies he cannot celebrate the
Lord, he can't thank Him, he'll be dead in the grave. And so
he cries out, the Lord delivers him, he cast all his sins behind
his back, and now he prays praises God for that, and he realizes
that he did it in love to his soul. All of this, again, is
speaking of the experience of the Lord Jesus Christ as our
substitute. It's our experience, but again,
Christ has taken away the sting of death, and so our comfort
is in our surety that he took our responsibilities to answer
God for us and to take away our sins and the death we deserve.
So he says here, in death, this is Psalm 6, verse 5, in death,
there's no remembrance of thee. In the grave, who shall give
thee thanks? Christ didn't stay in the grave. He died, but he
didn't stay there. He entered into heaven. He appeared
in the presence of God for us. And therefore, even though he
died in his body, where did his spirit go? He said, into thy
hands I commend my spirit. Hebrews 9 says, Christ has not
entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the
figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear
in the presence of God for us. Christ appears for us. That's
our comfort. That's our hope. His prayers
are heard, He appears for us, we who are sinful, we who have
no strength, who are troubled by our sin, who have no hope
and face the consequences of our sin, which is eternal death,
yet we look to the Lord Jesus Christ who took our sin, His
prayer was heard, and He was delivered from death, and now
we see that He stands in the presence of God for us. yet says
in verse 25, nor yet that he should offer himself often as
the high priest enters into the holy place every year with the
blood of others, for then must he often have suffered since
the foundation of the world. But listen, but now once in the
end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. Amazing, he sacrificed himself. Our high priest offered the Lamb
of God himself on the altar of his divine nature and obtained
our eternal redemption. So his prayer was heard. He went
into the grave in his body. He lay in the grave three days,
but in his soul he went to be with the Lord. He never saw corruption,
as it says in Psalm chapter 16 and Acts chapter 2. And then
going on in the Psalms in verse nine of Psalm chapter six, he
says, the Lord hath heard my supplication, the Lord will receive
my prayer. But back up, let me back up again.
Verse seven, mine eye is consumed because of grief, it waxeth old
because of all my enemies. In other words, he can't see
afar off. His enemies are constantly in his face, constantly accusing
him, mocking him. And so he feels that, and he
says, I'm consumed with grief because of that. So he cries
out in verse eight, depart from me, all you workers of iniquity,
for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. Here is the man
who is a man of sorrows, a man afflicted by God for the sins
of his people. And what do these wicked people
do? They add to his affliction. they add to his affliction, they
try to steal and rob his glory to get the attention of the people
to their own filthy rags of dung righteousness, and they would
like to see Christ lay in the grave forever, that they could
put themselves on the throne and have their claim to rewards
for their own obedience, and yet they are the Sodomites, the
Egyptians, in that way, in the religion of this world, so Christ
tells them, depart from me. Notice here, our high priest
substituted himself as our surety, sympathizes with us in our great
need, and he is successful. Verse nine, the Lord has heard
my supplication, the Lord will receive my prayer, let all mine
enemies be ashamed and sore vexed, let them return and be ashamed
suddenly. Because the Lord delivered him
up for our offenses, and what did he do? He raised him again
for our justification. He set him on his own right hand,
he exalted him to the highest place, and he silenced every
enemy, and he subdues every enemy. He has put all enemies under
his feet. Sit on my right hand, the psalmist
said, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Christ was successful. He was heard. His sufferings
came up to God. His soul was vexed, and the Lord
heard him. He heard him for his mercy's
sake. What is the basis of God's mercy? What is the foundation
of it, the throne of justice? What is the thing upon which
God's mercy rests? Is it not his truth and justice
and righteousness? And what is that? It's the answer
of Christ offered up on that seat of God's rule where his
mercy is given for sinners. And what is that? It's the mercy
seat of Christ, his propitiation. Let me read this to you. And
this will be the last place in 1 John 4. In verse 10, herein
is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent
his son to be, notice, his son, the propitiation for our sins. What is the basis of God's mercy?
Why did God have mercy on his people in Christ? Because Christ
answered justice. He appeased God's wrath. He took
it away. He made reconciliation in his
own death for the sins of his people. He satisfied God. He gave God a full and complete
answer of satisfaction for our sins. That's the reason he could
pray for mercy according to truth. That's the reason he was heard,
because he did it all. He himself took our sins, he
suffered for them, he gave to God a full answer, and he cried
out for mercy, that God would show mercy to him and his people
with him, and therefore he was delivered. And to all of his
enemies, he says, now you depart from me. You depart, the Lord
has heard me, and the Lord will not let my prayers go unanswered. I want to read this. I said that
would be the last one, didn't I? I'm sorry. Let me read this
to you in Micah chapter 7. Micah 7, verse 7, Therefore I
will look unto the Lord, I will wait for my God, for the God
of my salvation. My God will hear me, rejoice
not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my
cause and execute judgment for me, he will bring me forth to
the light, and I shall behold his righteousness. That's what
the Lord has done for his people. He pleads our cause, and he pleaded
our cause in our surety when he stood for us, clothed in our
shame, and then answered God, and he clothed us in his righteousness. All of our enemies are put to
shame because in the Lord all the seed of Israel are justified
in glory. He has all the glory because
he bore all our shame before God and now his enemies who opposed
his salvation and did not trust in him, who do not trust in him,
but cling tenaciously to their own self-righteousness as dung
and as filthy rags, they are put to shame before God and they're
told by Christ in the end, It's a narrow gate. You didn't find
it. God didn't open it to you. Depart from me, you that work
iniquity. You can't come by your works.
You can only come one way, by the blood of Jesus. That's why
this psalm is so comforting. Christ has answered it all, and
this is the comfort of our souls. When we pray, we can take his
words and ask God to hear us for his mercy's sake, to hear
us for Christ's sake. Do your will. Bring glory to
yourself in my salvation. Subdue mine iniquities. Overcome
my sins which prevail against me. Answer through my Savior,
and I know that he has power to save me. Let's pray. Lord,
we thank you that your strength against our sin was enough to
put away our sins, that you answered your own requirements for us,
you took the responsibility and the obligation that our sins
and our obedience demanded from you justice and righteousness,
and you fully brought them up, and you answered it. And thank
you, Lord, that you are able to save, you alone can save us,
and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, is the one who did it
all. And we trust Him to bring us to glory, to give us the reward
in proportion to His obedience, not in proportion to our sins
or to our pretend obedience. We don't come in our own righteousness,
we only trust His. And we don't ask for mercies
for our sake, Lord, we ask them for Your name's sake. We ask
them to the glory of Your Son. Find a way, Lord, in Your wisdom,
to be gracious to us for Christ's sake and glorify Him, and glorify
Yourself in our salvation. This is our hope in life, and
this is our hope by Your grace until death. And we pray, Lord,
that death will not hold us, that our bodies will be raised
incorruptible, because our Savior was raised incorruptible, and
we are in Him, and He is all of our confidence. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen.