Looking in Psalm 69, and I can't
think of a better psalm for us to consider this morning as we
would set about to remember the Lord's death till he comes again
in the fashion in which he has instructed us to do so. And because
this psalm is one that clearly sets forth the prayer of the
Lord Jesus Christ in our behalf as He became sin for us. Psalm 69 says, Save me, O God,
for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire
where there is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying, my throat
is dried, my eyes fail while I wait for my God. They that
hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head,
and they that would destroy me being mine enemies wrongfully
are mighty. Then I restored that which I
took not away. O God, thou knowest my foolishness,
and my sins are not hid from thee. Let not them that wait
on thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let not
those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel. Because for thy sake I have borne
reproach, shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger
unto my brethren and an alien unto my mother's children. For
the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches
of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me. When I wept
and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. I made
sackcloth also my garment, and I became a proverb to them. They
that sit in the gate speak against me, and I was the song of the
drunkards. But as for me, my prayer is unto
Thee, O God, O Lord. In an acceptable time, O God,
in the multitude of Thy mercy, hear me in the truth of Thy salvation. Deliver me out of the mire and
let me not sink. Let me be delivered from them
that hate me and out of the deep waters. Let not the water flood
overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not
the pit shut her mouth upon me. Hear me, O Lord, for thy lovingkindness
is good. Turn unto me according to the
multitude of thy tender mercies, and hide not thy face from thy
servant, for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily. Draw not unto
my soul and redeem it. Deliver me because of mine enemies.
Thou hast known my reproach and my shame and my dishonor. Mine
adversaries are all before thee. Reproach hath broken my heart,
and I am full of heaviness. And I looked for something to
take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found
none. They gave me also gall for my
meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their
table become a snare before them, and that which should have been
for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened
that they see not, and make their loins continually to shake. Pour
out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take
hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate,
and let none dwell in their tents. For they persecute him whom thou
hast smitten, and they talk to the grief of those whom thou
hast wounded. Add iniquity unto their iniquity,
and let them not come into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted
out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous.
But I am poor and sorrowful. Let thy salvation, O God, set
me up on high. I will praise the name of God
with a song and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also
shall please the Lord better than an ox or a bullet that hath
horns and hoofs. The humble shall see this and
be glad, and your heart shall live that seek God. For the Lord
heareth the poor, and despiseth not his prisoners. Let the heaven
and earth praise him, the seas, and everything that moveth therein.
For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah, that
they may dwell there and have it in possession. The seed also
of his servant shall inherit it, and they that love his name
shall dwell therein. What a glorious message. I mean,
you know, the Lord sets forth both his deep sorrow, his trouble,
his grief, his brokenness before Almighty God, for the judgments
of God fell upon him. And he walked, he experienced
the wrath of God poured out upon a man more than any other man
ever has or ever could as far as that's concerned. But yet
we also see in this his triumph and His victory and promise to
all of those for whom He came into the world, a glorious victory. He makes a differentiation in
this psalm between those who gave Him gall for His meat and
vinegar to drink and those who are His people. that He says,
they that love His name shall dwell therein. So there is a
differentiation made here in this psalm between, if you want
to use these terms, the elect and the non-elect, the elect
and the reprobate. The Lord makes a distinction.
When men cloud that distinction, They rob God of glory and they
disregard the actual work that Christ performed because He makes
it clear that He came to perform a particular work and He accomplished
it. He said it was finished. He did
it. He said, Father, of all that
thou hast given me, I have lost none. They belong to thee. You
gave them to me. and I have kept Him. And He will
keep His own unto the end. What a glorious Savior He is. But primarily we see, especially
as this psalm opens up, the grave weakness in which the Lord Jesus
Christ was brought into as a man. More marred, more hated, more
reviled, than any man ever has been. Not only is He reviled
by men, but He is reviled by God Himself as the sin of His
people is put upon Him. Now we are very much hope to
always be clear when we speak of these things that in no wise
Was there ever any sin in the Lord Jesus Christ? He became
sin for us. Our sin was put upon Him, but
He was without sin. Because as Brother Al ably pointed
out, He was that seed which was the seed of the woman, not the
seed of man. And the Lord made that plain
when He stole Satan. He said that the woman's seed
is going to bruise your head. He didn't say the man's seed.
A man is not going to triumph over Satan. He doesn't have the
power. But the seed of the woman, that
one who came forth in that virgin birth, is the one who has been
sent into the world to triumph over sin, having no sin of his
own. but yet touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Now,
not just in an external way. You know, like when something
happens to somebody and you say, oh, well, I feel your pain. Well,
you don't really feel their pain, do you? I mean, you want to feel
their pain. You want to help them. You really do pity them. You
want to do some good for them. But Jesus Christ actually did. Notice, He became sin for us.
He didn't just look on from afar and say, Oh, well, I understand
your problem here. But He actually walked among
men as a man and had the wrath of God poured out upon Him and
was touched. That is, He was in the very depths
of His soul made aware of what it is to be a sinner, though
He had no sin of His own. And yet as a man who was perfect
and had one desire, which was to please his father. And so
that's what drives him unto the Lord as he says, Save me, O God,
for the waters will come into my soul. He doesn't want to be
separated from God in the sense that he loves his Father. When he prayed in the garden,
Father not my will but Thine, he said take this cup from me.
He wasn't praying to be delivered from the physical sufferings
as many people surmise and set forth that he was. Here he was,
that one who desired more than anything else in all the world
to please his father. But the only way in which he
could be pleasing in his father's sight was to become displeasing
in his father's sight, as he became sin for men. Now, if that's
not a, how could a man ever, just a mortal man, How could
He ever bear up in such a thing as that? He couldn't. Christ alone is that one who
could enter into such a place as that, being without sin of
His own. But He does bear our sin. And He cries out, O God, save
me. Deliver me from this. This thing
is weighing down upon Him. He despises sin, but yet he sees
sin in himself, not of himself, but in himself as a sinner before
Almighty God, bearing the sin of those for whom he came. Now,
I can't... You know, this is too far above
our concept, our consideration. We can't really enter into that,
except to pause and just stand in amazement and wonder that
he would do that. That this would be that which
he desired to do in our behalf and yet feeling the very heartache
of it at the same time. For the waters will come into
my soul, that is I'm drowning. Now I've never drowned I've been
in a situation before where I thought I was going to drown because
if I didn't get to the top of the water pretty quick, I was
going to take a breath and that was going to be it. And that's
that which the Lord is expressing. I'm drowning. The waters will
come into my soul. I sink in the deep mire where
there is no standing. as in quicksand, as Jeremiah
when he was in that dungeon and he was sunk in the mire, the
script says, up to his armpits. And this wasn't just a nice little
clean mud, but this was the septic tank. I mean, this was the lowest
spot in that, that, Castle where he was I mean, this is where
all of the the waste and everything ultimately Saddled him here.
He was sunk in mire, but even greater trouble Gripped the Lord
Jesus Christ. He wasn't physically in mire,
but he was in mire the mud the dirt the filth Of his people
sin And you know you Paul's think I mean in a measure by the grace
of God the Lord has called us to hate sin. But we hate sin
as sinful men who've been delivered from it. Christ hated sin as
that holy God who could not look upon sin and yet became sin for
us. Now that's an amazing thing. How could it be? But yet can
you imagine Being something that you hate the worst, being that
thing that you are in, covered in from head to foot. I'm coming
to deep waters where the floods overwhelm me. I am weary of my
crying. My throat is dried. My eyes fail
while I wait for my God. He says I've cried till I can't
cry anymore. I don't have any more tears left.
My throat's dry. All my moisture has been expended. I can't go any further. I'm weary of my crying. I can't
continue on. Now, you know, the Lord had all
power, but yet He became weak for our sake. Now, can you imagine
The Lord Jesus Christ praying and the scripture says that had
the angels not come and held him up, he would have been overwhelmed
in the garden. And yet he, because of his, the
weight of sin, not because of his weakness, lacking power,
he could have at any time just cast it all off and be done with
it. But he underwent it. He learned
obedience by the things which He suffered. He became perfect,
the Scripture says. Now we know He was perfect to
start with, but He became perfect. That is, He became suited for
our need. He did the thing that needed
to be done. I can't imagine it. I can't comprehend
it. I can only look at it and see
it from afar and hope that God would give me grace to grasp
it to some extent. my eyes fail while I wait for
my God. I can't even see. They that hate
me without cause are more than the hairs of mine head. Why would
anybody have hated the Lord Jesus Christ? I mean there was not
one thing that he ever did when he walked in the earth. Now you
and I, we couldn't say that. There's been plenty of stuff
that you've done that people ought to hate you for. They ought
to just kick you in the teeth and You know, go on, you've done
many things like that. Christ never did one thing. They
hated Him without cause. They're more than the hairs on
my head. They would destroy me. Not just they want to make me
feel bad, they want Him dead. They want Him put out of the
world. being my enemies wrongfully.
Everyone who is the enemy of Christ is wrongful. You know
a man can't be the enemy of Christ and be excused for it. You don't
have any grounds for it. No place, no room. My enemies are mighty they that would destroy
me being mine enemies wrongfully are mighty that is they have
power over me now can you imagine the Lord Jesus Christ having
all power yet submitting himself to the power of men as he told
Pilate Pilate said well you know if you knew who I was you'd be
trembling in your boots he said you wouldn't have any power at
all if it wasn't for me but he said go and do what you gotta
do You know, because this is ordained of God, you can't prevent
it anyway. I lay down my life. No man takes
it from me. They're mighty. Then I restored
that which I took not away. Now, that's kind of a confusing
passage or phrase, but I think it, in the context in which it
is, they sought to rob him of glory. He didn't take that away. That is, in other words, He didn't
seek to rob God of glory. He didn't seek to have the glory
of God diminished. But rather, He restored that
glory in what He undertook to do. Because you see, the glory
of God is never seen any place so more vividly than in the cross
of Christ. If a man is going to speak of
the glory of God, don't let him go out and look at the mountains
and say, oh look, what a glorious thing. That's okay to do that. But don't think that you have
beheld the glory of God when you looked on Mount Everest,
the highest mountain on earth, so they tell us. or that you've
scanned the seas and said, what a wondrous thing it is. Yes,
that's wonderful, no doubt about it. But, dear brethren, the place
where God would reveal His glory was in the cross of Jesus Christ. And Christ alone could restore
that. Christ alone did restore that.
Because, you see, The scripture says, every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall confess unto Him. Everyone, all
men, all creatures, all creation, gonna bow down and worship Him.
Whether they want to or whether they don't. Doesn't make a difference
about that. God's people, they want to. They desire to. It's a delightful
thing to magnify the name of Christ, to glorify God. Oh God, thou knowest my foolishness. My sins are not here for me.
Can you imagine that? Christ praying for us. To the point
that he says he is foolish. Why is he foolish? Is he foolish
because of his own self? No, he is foolish because of
us. Because he became a fool for our sake. He became foolish
in the eyes of God. He said that foolishness has
come upon me. It belongs to me. I own it. I am foolish before God. Why
did he say that? For our sake, dear brethren,
for those for whom he bled and died, he said, I have become
a fool, and my sins are not hid from thee.
His sins? He had no sin. Yes, he did. He
had the sin of those people whom he loved, whom he set forth to
redeem. Let not them that wait on Thee,
O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed." Now he says, you know, here I
am being made a mockery of, but O Lord, don't let those that
seek Thee be ashamed. But rather let them glory in
the cross of Christ. See, His disciples There was
a period of time when they were somewhat ashamed, were they not? Christ, I mean, here He was the
Messiah. When they set out and fought
Him, well, this is the one. This is the one God sent. John
sent word from prison. He said, Are you really Him?
I mean, they're fixing to kill me, and I thought you were the
one that was going to restore the Kingdom to Israel. Even right
up to the end, the disciples said, well, are you going now? Are you going to restore the
kingdom to Israel? They didn't understand. He already had. He
already did. But he says, don't let them be
ashamed. And when the time is right and they look back and
they see what it is that I have done, let thy glory be known. For Peter, when he stood on the
day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God came upon him and he showed
him what he was, the shame and the despair left him, did it
not? And he stood before those people
and he said, This same Jesus, whom you have crucified with
wicked hands, God hath raised up and made Lord. and Master,
Ruler, King, Savior of sinners. Oh, what a glorious One He is. Let them not wait on Thee. Are
you waiting on the Lord? Let them that wait on Thee not
be ashamed for my sake. He said, don't let the foolishness
that has overtaken me deliver them from it. Let not those that
seek Thee be confounded for My sake, O God of Israel. Oh, let
them find a place of glory in Me, because for Thy sake I have
borne reproach. Shame hath covered My face. He came to do His Father's will,
and His Father's will was that He bear the sin of His people.
And he said, because for thy sake I have borne reproach, shame
hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my
brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. Scripture
says that he came to his own, and his own received him not. Came to his own, his own believed
him not. His own brethren. I mean, not just the tribe of
Israel, but his own people, his own brothers. in his own house,
he said, who do you think you are? The Lord had no friends when
he came down to it. You know we all like to think
we have some friends, do we not? Sometimes you find out how much
friends you got when things get kind of in a bad situation, but
Christ was forsaken of all. The ones whom he loved and who
professed love for him. And I believe they did love him.
But they had no power. They had no strength of their
own. And so they fell away. I become
a stranger and an alien unto my mother's children. My own
brethren. Of my own mother. For the zeal
of thine house hath eaten me up. and the reproaches of them
that reproach thee are fallen upon me." Now you know this Scripture
is quoted in the Gospels whenever Christ cleared the temple of
the money changers. It says that this Scripture is
fulfilled. for the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." You
see, Christ was His one desire in the earth as He came into
the earth and walked among men from the time He was an infant
in the womb. I don't understand. I don't know
how it can be. When I think about these things,
it just baffles me beyond measure. But we do know that when He was
just a young child, About twelve years old and he went up to the
temple and he reasoned with those men there. And they marveled at the wisdom
that he had. Because you see, even as a young
child, the zeal of the house of God had eaten him up. What a wondrous thing. You know,
we don't know the Lord purposefully. has not told us anything about
really or much of anything from the time of the Lord's infancy
until he came on the scene as a full grown man except that
one little incident right there. The only thing we know. What
a wondrous thing it must have been to see a young man. Of course you know The reality
is that it probably was that that caused a lot of the people
to despise him because the fact that he was the zeal of the Lord's
house had eaten him up. People don't like to be around
people that love the Lord. I mean, you know, the world will
put up with you for a while, but now after a while you've
got to quit that. You've got, now look, a little
bit of that goes a long ways. Look, we don't wanna hear about
that all the time. We don't mind a little religion,
but I mean, let's get, let's don't be foolish. But the zeal
of the Lord's house has eaten him up. And the reproaches of
them that reproach thee have fallen upon me. When I wept and
chastened my soul with fasting, That was to my reproach. I made sackcloth also my garment,
became a proverb to them. He said, when I fasted, they
reproached me. When I drank wine with the winebibbers,
they reproached me. Didn't make a difference what
I did. Whatever I did, they found fault with it. He said, I made sackcloth also
my garment and became a proverb to them. Now we don't read anywhere
in the scripture that he actually wore sackcloth. May have, I don't
know if he did or he didn't. That was a custom of the Jews
to do that and so perhaps he did wear sackcloth. But the fact is that he was a
man who was humble before Almighty God. He was a man who prayed
and fasted. He did. And yet men mocked Him
for it. They that sit in the gate speak
against Me. Now those that sit in the gate
are the High ups. I mean, the men that sat in the
gate, that was the elders of the city. That was the people
that was in the government. That was the mayor and the councilmen
and whatever. That was, you know, those that
were in the gates. He says, they that sit in the
gates speak against me. See, they said, we've got to
do something about him. And then what the Jews did, did
they not? And he said, and I was a song
of drunkards. He said, not only did the high ups, speak against
me, but I said, even the drunkards made fun of me. They made songs
up about me. And so he was rejected of all
men. But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord. See, in
the midst of all of that suffering, he had one place that he would
go, and that was unto the Lord. Even, you see, Job said, though
he slay me, yet will I trust in him. Now, Job meant that to
a certain extent, but he couldn't mean it as clearly and fully
as the Lord Jesus did, because he actually demonstrated it.
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. That's what he says here.
But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord. In an acceptable
time, O God, in the multitude of thy mercy, hear me in the
truth of thy salvation. when it pleases Thee, O Lord."
See, he prayed according to the will of God. Now, the Lord told
us to pray, not my will, but Thine be done. He told us that
when we pray, it says, Father, Thy will be done in the earth
as it is in the heavens. And we say that, but we don't
always really secretly want that at least. I mean, we might say
it, but sometimes we say, Lord, won't you maybe make an exception
this time? I mean, you know, that's just
the nature of man. But the Lord Jesus Christ, he
never desired anything but the will of God to do the Father's
will, to be completely given over unto him. And he gave himself to die for
our sake. even as he gave us this memorial
to remember his death until he comes. And certainly we are reminded
of the one thing that he would have us to remember. If you don't
remember anything else, remember his death until he comes again. Because it is in his death that
he magnified the name of his father, that he saved his people
and set forth their glorification with him. What a wondrous thing. May the Lord give us a mind to
receive it.