So I'm preaching from Psalm 69, 69. Yeah, that's right. I think sometimes I'm a little bit dyslexic, particularly with numbers. And so somehow when I said 69, I thought I said it's 96, because I do that sort of thing. Anyway, 69. And it's the Psalms we've been singing this morning. And you might remember a couple of months ago, that was our Psalm of the Month. And I introduced it the first Lord's Day and mentioned that it was a Messianic Psalm. And it is, it's a very Messianic Psalm. But it's quoted and referenced in the New Testament more than any other Psalm, except for Psalm 22, which is clearly a Messianic Psalm. So they're both messianic and in similar ways, interestingly. And so when I say messianic, children, I wonder if you know what I mean by that. It simply means that it's a psalm that speaks of the Lord Jesus' coming. It's speaking about Him. It's telling us about His life. It can even tell us what He experienced. So, for example, Psalm 22 describes vividly what the Lord Jesus experienced on the cross. In what ways are Psalm 22 and Psalm 69 similar? Well, both speak of Jesus' experience on the cross. Psalms 22, verse 1 starts the psalm with the very sentence that Jesus said on the cross. Psalm 69, verse 21a, that is the first line of Psalm 69, 21, speaks of the gall that they gave Him. And Matthew 27, 34 mentions that they gave him wine mixed with gall. Then in Psalm 69, 21 again, the second line, it speaks of him giving him vinegar to drink to quench his thirst. And we know that in every gospel account, it records that. In Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all record that sour wine was given to him to drink. And so what is sour wine? It's wine that's gone over the hill. It's turning to vinegar. It is vinegar. So there it is, seeing that again. And so finally, like the 22nd Psalm, this Psalm begins with the humiliation and ends with the exaltation of Christ. Like Psalm 22, Psalm 69 was written by David. And I would stop and read it at this point. And so we'll try to notice the several places where we can see that it is clearly David that is writing it. So Psalm 69, and I need to apologize. I'm gonna read this from the Christian Standard Bible because as I was working on this and I translated it myself, The Christian Standard Bible really is the most accurate. It exceeds the ESV. The ESV messes it in several points, and I really like the way this reads. So you can follow along, but you'll see that there are places where it's a little different. So Psalm 69. For the choir director, according to the lilies of David. Save me, O God, for the water has risen to my neck. I have sunk in deep mud, and there is no footing. I have come into deep water, and a flood sweeps over me. I am weary from crying. My throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God. Those who hate me without cause are more numerous than the hairs on my head. My deceitful enemies who would destroy me are powerful. Though I did not steal, I must repay. God, you know my foolishness, and my guilty acts are not hidden from you. Do not let those who put their hope in you be disgraced because of me, Lord Yahweh of armies. Do not let those who seek you be humiliated because of me, God of Israel. For I have endured insults because of you, and shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother's sons, because zeal for your house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. I mourned and fasted, but it brought me insults. I wore sackcloth as my clothing, and I was a joke to them. Those who sit at the city gate talk about me, and drunkards make up songs about me. But as for me, Yahweh, my prayer to you is for a time of favor. In your abundant, faithful love, God, answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the miry mud. Don't let me sink. Let me be rescued from those who hate me and from the deep water. Don't let the flood water sweep over me or the deep swallow me up. Don't let the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, Yahweh, for your faithful love is good. In keeping with your abundant compassion, turn to me. Don't hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Answer me quickly. Come near to me and redeem me. Ransom me because of my enemies. You know the insults I endure, my shame and disgrace. You are aware of all my adversaries. Insults have broken my heart, and I am in despair. I waited for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but found no one. Instead, they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their table set before them be a snare, and let it be a trap for their allies. Let their eyes grow too dim to see, and let their hips continually shake. Pour out your rage on them, and let your burning anger overtake them. Make their fortification desolate. May no one live in their tents, for they persecute the one you struck, and talk about the pain of those you wounded. Charge them on top of crime. Do not let them share in your righteousness. Let them be erased from the book of life and not be recorded with the righteous. But as for me, poor and in pain, let your salvation protect me, God. I will praise God's name with song and exalt Him with thanksgiving. That will please Yahweh more than an ox, more than a bull with horns and hooves. The humble will see it and rejoice. You who seek God, take heart, for Yahweh listens to the needy and does not despise his own prisoners. Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them, for God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah. They will live there and possess it. The descendants of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will live in it. Could you pray with me one more time? Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for your word. It is truth in life. It teaches us who you are. It teaches us about ourselves, that we are sinners. It teaches us to hope in the Lord Jesus. And so we thank you for the Lord Jesus and his work on the cross. And we thank you for this psalm, which so clearly points to him. And I pray, Father, that you would now be pleased to help your servant to openly express this, so it would be a blessing to your people. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So like Psalm 22, Psalm 69 was written by David, though some dispute this, which is a little shocking really, but this position is mostly based on verse 9 and verse 35, and we'll look at those later as we go through the psalm. But I want to say outright that I hold to it strictly that it's a Davidic psalm. It's what the inspired title says. The Apostle Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote in Romans 11.9 that it was David that wrote this psalm. So I think that settles the matter. And yet, I think we still examine those things. And you simply don't need to lean into liberal scholars who consider who the author was and invent other things. And it's disappointing sometimes you read solid conservative writers who do that. And I think they're making a mistake. G. Campbell Morgan, who some of you may have never heard of, was the mentor for D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and he said this about this psalm. Perhaps in no psalm in the whole Psalter is the sense of sorrow profounder or more intense than this. The soul of the singer pours out, excuse me, pours itself out in unrestrained abandonment to the overwhelming and terrible grief which consumes it. In Robert Godfrey's book, Learning to Love the Psalms, He says this psalm presents elements of lament and praise, but in a particularly pointed and vivid way. The suffering is poignant, the praise strong, the imprecation severe, and the anticipations of Christ detailed. And the psalm is complicated in several ways. It has several different genres within it. You sometimes hear people speak of the imprecatory psalms, and you'll read one, and the whole thing is imprecations. But there are other psalms that are called hymns, that is, they're praises. There are other psalms that are entirely laments. This has all of those, and it's mixed together, so this can't get an easy label on it. And as Hebrew scholars analyze the Hebrew poetry, just to remind some of you who heard an earlier sermon of mine on the Psalms, Hebrew scholars break the Psalms into large groups called stanzas, and those stanzas are broken into smaller chunks called strophes. And for example, in Psalm 119 has 22 stanzas, and each of those corresponds to a Hebrew letter. So you'll see it in your Bible all together, and that's considered a stanza. This psalm has four stanzas, and within stanzas there are strophes, or paragraphs really, and within each strophe there are verses, and the verses are broken down into lines, or sometimes they're called cola. This psalm has four stanzas, and the first one begins at verse one, and runs through verse 12. The first stanza is a lament, expresses deep sadness and grief. It describes David's dire situation. The second stanza begins at verse 13 and runs through 21. And this stanza says supplication, he turns and he's in prayer about the things he's lamented. And yet at the second half of that stanza, the second strophe in that, he pivots back to a lament. And I think that's partly to introduce what's coming. This particular stanza expresses David's prayers in light of his lament. The third stanza is 22 through 28, and that's the imprecations. And I think the last stroke, the second stroke of that second stanza is really kind of an introduction into these imprecations. The fourth stanza is 29 through 36, and the content of that stanza is described as a hymn, as I've mentioned already. It ends on a very high note, just as Psalm 22 does. What's interesting about this is that the first stanza has these two strophes. The second stanza has two strophes. The third stanza, the imprecations, has one strophe, and the final stanza, again, has two strophes. It's a very balanced, well-structured psalm. And David actually wrote this in a way that ties the whole thing together. And so I'd like to walk you through that here in a moment. But as we think about this, the first stance is lament. And as you and I think about our lives in Christ, there are certainly times when we lament. That is, we have heavy matters, things that are very discouraging and overwhelming. And so what's the correct response to that? Well, Philippians 4, 6 says, don't worry about anything, but in everything through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And that's what David does. So he expresses his laments and immediately he turns and he prays about those. So let's compare this first stanza, those two first paragraphs, those laments to the second stanza. So if you've got your Bibles open, you might be able to follow this a little better because the balance and the way David wove this together is striking. So looking at verse one, if you've got your Bibles open, if not, just follow along the best you can. He starts off with, save me. Save me, O God. And jumping down to verse 13, the second stanza, he says, God, answer me with your pure, sure salvation. So he's tying it together, mentioning salvation. Verse two, jumping back to verse two, you see he speaks of sunk in deep mud. And in verse 14, then he speaks of the miry mud. Also in verse two, he speaks of deep waters. At the end of verse 14, he speaks again of deep waters. At the end of verse 2, he speaks of floods sweep over me, and at the beginning of verse 15, he speaks of floodwaters that sweep over me. In verse 4, he says, those who hate me without cause. And a little bit out of order, but back up in verse 14, he speaks of those who hate me. And then jumping down to verse 5, he starts that, he says, God, you know my foolishness. And jumping clear down to verse 19, he says, you know the insults. So he's tying it together. God knows all. He knows his own, his own foolishness, and he knows the insults that have come from his enemies. And then in verse five, he says, my guilty acts are not hidden from you. In verse 17, he says, don't hide your face from your servant. So he's using the verb hide, repeating that one, his own sin is not hidden from God. And the other side is, please don't turn your face away from me. Don't hide your face away from me. For those who trust in the Lord, that's a terrible thing when God turns his look away from us. And then he uses a whole string of words that tie together with the second half, starting in verse six, in verse seven, and then also in verse nine, he uses words like disgraced, humiliated, endured insults, shame, insults. Over in verse 19, then he says insults, shame, disgrace. Verse 20, insults and despair. And then finally, at the end of the first stanza, verses 10 through 12, it reads, I mourned and fasted, but it brought me insults. I wore sackcloth as my clothing, and I was a joke to them. Those who sit at the city gate talk about me, and drunkards make up songs about me. Well, how's that tied to in the second stanza? In verse 20 and 21 it says, I waited for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but found no one. Instead, they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. It's the opposite of what he's describing. In other words, over here he's fasting and mourning. What would he like? What he thinks he deserves, and I think he did, was sympathy. He didn't get any of that. So you can see these parallelism. David wove this psalm together beautifully, but he didn't stop there, because you see it again in the imprecations. And so let's continue to look at this. We'll look at the third stanza, and there's language all through the third stanza where he's pouring out these curses on his enemies and God's enemies, and he's using language from the first two stanzas. So in verse 22, he starts with the word table. Well, he ends the second stanza with, instead of, they gave me gall for my food and for my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink. The idea is something to eat. And so instantly, he turns and he pivots on that and points to what they would be eating. He's talking about their table. Verse 23, he asks God to cause their eyes to grow dim so they can't see. In verse three, back up in verse three, he speaks of his eyes were failing. In verse 25, he talks about making their encampment desolate, may no one live in their tents. But back up in verse eight, he says, I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother's sons. He's been estranged from his family. And so, as he looks at God's enemies, at his enemies, saying, wipe them out, remove them completely, wipe their whole family out. And then in verse seven, excuse me, 27, he says, add guilt to their guilt. Crime to their crime, the Christian standard Bible says. And in verse five he says, you know my foolishness and my guilty acts. So he's woven this whole psalm together. It's very balanced and it's woven all together. It's a beautiful psalm. With that introduction, I want to give you my outline. You can see it on the back of the bulletin. As we read this, we can see that these really were real life events in the life of David. He was a prophet. Many of his Psalms point to Jesus. And so my first section, I want to look at David in his context. And to do good acts of Jesus, you always have to start with the context that it was written in. And so we look at the historical context and how this actually applied to David. The second section, we're going to look to see how David was prophesying about the Lord Jesus. And then in the third and the final section, we'll look to see how to apply this home to ourselves, especially the implications of this home. So Psalm 69 in David's life. In 1 Samuel 16, by the way, you don't need to turn there. We're going to move too fast, but this is a quick review of the life of David. In 1 Samuel chapter 16, Saul was still king, but he had been rejected by God. So the prophet Samuel comes along and anoints this young man, David. He anoints him to be king. And once he was anointed, the scriptures say the spirit of Yahweh came powerfully upon David from that day forward. And just a side note, maybe this is a little bit of a pet peeve for mine, but David was not a young boy, as many of the Bible stories in Sunday school lessons teach us. The language of the Hebrew doesn't allow it. In fact, in 1 Samuel 16, 18, before David meets Goliath, he's described as a man who can play the lyre or the harp. Saul was being tormented in his heart by evil spirits, and so people were looking for some way to help him cope with that. And there was one young man, one of his servants that spoke to him, he said, I know of a young man, and this is David, he is a valiant man, a warrior, eloquent, handsome, and Yahweh is with him. And in the next chapter, he meets Goliath and kills Goliath. And following this heroic act, Saul's son, Jonathan, binds himself to David in a close friendship. Then we are told that David marched out with Saul's army and was successful in everything he did. So Saul put him in charge of his fighting men. But immediately, Saul's favor began to sour on David. It's amazing how quick that happens. And one of the things that seems to trigger it is the women began to sing about Saul and David. And they sang, Saul has killed his thousands, which is a good thing. But then with David, his tens of thousands. So at that point, David was already a mighty warrior. And he was falling out of favor with King Saul. And just a few verses later, as you read through that account, you'll see that we see that for the first time of Saul's hate of David, it becomes apparent. He has this evil spirit that comes upon him, is what the scriptures say, and so David's playing the harp and he throws his spear and tries to pin David to the wall. David's quick, he dodged it. And yet following that, not long after that, Saul promised his daughter Michal to David in marriage if he does a certain task. So David goes out and goes so far beyond the success of that task that it's a joke. It was a small task in some ways that it was given to David. And so he earned Saul's daughter as his wife. In chapter 19 of 1 Samuel, Jonathan tries to restore David to Saul's favor. He tells his father, the king should not sin against his servant David. And by the way, indeed, he was doing that. He hasn't sinned against you. Jonathan proclaims David's innocence before the king. Nonetheless, Saul does try to seek to end David's life. It becomes apparent that at some point in the narrative, Saul actually knows that David's been anointed king in place of his own sons. There will not be any dynasty here. As a result, David ends up running from Saul. And at first, you remember in the account, he goes to the tabernacle and he receives some bread. And that gets mentioned in the New Testament. He wasn't supposed to eat that bread. That was special bread for the priest alone. And Goliath's sword is stored there and he takes it. But David's visit there eventually led to the murder of the priest who was on duty there, Ahimelech, and all of Ahimelech's male relatives. So David, as a result, flees to the city of Gath, the Philistine city of Gath, where he's out of reach of Saul, but he becomes in danger there because of King Achish's men don't trust David. They knew the songs that they were singing in Israel, how David had killed its 10,000s. And so David's in a bad way, and it was at that time David wrote Psalm 34. As a result, David fled there and went to the cave of Adalim, and there men start to gather around him. Not long later, David learns that the Philistines were attacking the city of Calah. It was a walled city in Judah. This is a Judahite city. So the Lord sends David to defend the city. He and his 600 men go over there to defend it against the Philistines. And he does. He's successful. But then he learns from the Lord while he's in the city that the men of the city will turn him over to Saul when Saul comes, and Saul is on the way. So he's just rescued this city, and yet those men would betray him. These men are his own brothers. They were men of Judah. So David and his men left, and they moved from place to place, running from place to place, hiding out and trying to stay ahead of Saul. David had reason to expect protection from the city of Cala. Who wouldn't? He's just saved them from their enemy. But instead, they would betray him. David was ostracized from his fellow Judeans, and it was as though somebody had given him poison for food. David has several very close shaves following that. Twice the Lord allows Saul to fall into David's hands, once in the cave, once they were camped out and he snuck into the camp with one of his men. But on the first of those occasions, David calls out to Saul and says, why do you listen to the words of people who say, look, David intends to harm you? So there were people in that time who were telling lies to Saul about David. And that's not to mention Saul's own lies to himself about David. At the end of that pleading, when he's speaking to Saul from a distance, David adds, I haven't sinned against you, even though you are hunting me down to take my life. In a sense, it was as though David were accused of stealing, and he was being required to pay it back. David also said to Saul at that time, may Yahweh judge between me and you, and Yahweh take vengeance on you for me, but my hand will never be against you. It was an imprecation, and he put a curse on Saul. Though we could go on, that's enough. We know that David longed to be back in his place, to be able to worship in the tabernacle of the Lord. He wanted to be with his people. He didn't want to be a pariah, an outcast, any longer. Because being an enemy of the king, being on the run, is a shameful thing. And so all of Israel considered him to be an outlaw. As a result, his enemies were without number. Even some of the people of Judah, his own tribe, his own brothers betrayed him. It was a time of deep anguish for David. So with that background, let's look at the psalm. My personal preference, I think you might know, though I've only preached a few times, is to go verse by verse. This point, we'll be here past noon if I did that, so we're not going to do that. We're going to take it strophe by strophe, paragraph by paragraph, and I think that will serve us well. So starting with the Hebrew title, it's noteworthy that this is an inspired title. There's a lot of evidence for those. Those little titles weren't added later, but they were written at that time. But there's a lot of discussion in the commentaries about this term. of the lilies, or to the lilies, or some different ways it's translated according to the lilies, and no one really quite knows what that means. It's probably a musical term, it could be a tune, it does appear in at least two other, I think maybe three other psalms, I'm not sure. But the significant thing is it says, of David. That's his signature, David wrote this psalm. The first strophe, verses one through four, describes with deep sadness how David is feeling. There are many commentators who point out that we don't know the specific historical context. Like Psalm 34, we know he was in the city of Gath and he had to get out of there. And nothing here tells us exactly when this happened or the particular circumstance that he was in. But I would suggest that he's describing perhaps a longer period of time. In fact, one commentator states, is generally true in individual laments, the metaphors are rather standard and designed to express a whole range of pain, suffering, and machinations of enemies without being concretely specific about any situation. And I think that's actually what we see here. Because some of the language he uses here, you'll see in other Psalms too. And there were sort of set phrases that the Psalms used, that David used and other Psalm writers used. So with our quick review of his life, we can see that it doesn't necessarily have to be a specific situation. David was on the run, and these things were true about him, and it might even span a whole decade. We don't know exactly when he wrote this, but I don't think he wrote it after the fact. It would be hard to write such a deep and moving psalm while you're looking back on it when he's become king of Judea already, but probably while he was in the midst of that. So David describes water that's rising up to his soul. That's what the Hebrew says. And to capture that idea, most of our versions translate it up to his neck. And the idea is that his life was in danger. And the language in verse two is often used in the Old Testament to describe invading armies, the whole idea of a flood coming upon you. And floodwaters in the Old Testament represent chaos and evil. And the flood of Noah, for example, was terrible and destructive. So when it speaks of floods, your mind should think of these floods. But there are other places, many places in the prophets that speak of a flood coming on Israel, and it's talking about an invading army. So when a powerful army is coming against you, it pictures a flood. It's like a flood. David had a flood upon him. His life was in danger, and Saul's army chased David on more than one occasion, and only the Lord saved David from Saul. Notice that David describes his situation as if he's stuck in the mud, or perhaps like quicksand, because there's an idea of sinking. This verse causes more of the liberal commentators to think, oh, it was Jeremiah who wrote it, because we know he got stuck in the mud in the bottom of that well. Well, there's just no compelling reason to think that. And I think they make two errors. The first is, the inspired text itself tells us that it was David that wrote it. But the second is, this is a poem. They fail to recognize that this is poetry, and poetry puts forward these ideas and images and pictures, and it communicates to us powerfully through those pictures. And so the idea of being stuck in mud, who hasn't been stuck in mud and lost their shoe in the mud because it's pulling you down? We understand that image. The fourth verse describes just what we reviewed when Saul's army was closing in on David. David had 600 men at the time, and Saul was coming at him with a whole army. Saul's army was powerful compared to David's. The expression, though I did not steal, I must repay, is thought to be an idiom. The commentators widely agree that that's probably the case. Thus the accusation against David that he was a usurper of the throne, or that at the very least he was trying to harm Saul, was a lie. It was a complete lie. And so what these people were saying about him, that he wanted to harm Saul, and thus coming after him, in a sense he had to repay, is false. The whole charge is false. The second paragraph, which is verses 5-12 of this stanza, David continues to express his deep sorrow. He starts out by admitting to God that he is a sinner. He calls it foolishness. He acknowledges that God knows his sin. And he's concerned that his bad situation, the charges against him, the fact that he's an enemy of the king, might cause godly people to be ashamed that they ever knew him or supported him. And he had people who had supported him. And we know that this is a dangerous position because Ahimelech lost his life and all of his male relatives just because Ahimelech helped David at a time when Ahimelech didn't even know that he was on the run from Saul. So being a friend with an outlaw is a shameful thing. if not a dangerous thing. In this same stroph, David uses a full, very honoring covenant title, including the name of God. To address God, he says, Lord Yahweh of armies. In the midst of his lament, he calls out to the God who is the Lord of armies. He uses his revealed name, his covenant name, Yahweh. One commentator points out that David uses the covenant name of God and thus honors him with other titles. This commentator says, it is true that David is a sinner, but that is no justification for the conduct of men towards him. He is suffering for the Lord's sake, and it is the Lord himself who is reviled in him. In other words, there is a close link between David and his God. David continues, and he points out to God that he's endured insults, and because of God, He was receiving these insults and all these things were happening to him. David reminds him of that. In fact, it was God who told Samuel to go anoint him as king. It wasn't David's idea. Up to this point in his life, David is pictured in the book of Samuel as a man after God's own heart. He's a man above reproach. And yet he was reviled and insulted. And now we come to verse nine. This verse is quoted in the New Testament about Jesus, but it's another critical verse for the liberals, interestingly. You see, it says God's house. And these people assume it means temple. Is that a reasonable assumption or not? Well, the temple hadn't been built yet, so if it means temple, it had to be written after David's time. That clearly has to be what it means. But again, they err. Because a quick search of your house or God's house in the Old Testament reveals many, many places where that is not the case. For example, in Genesis 14, 14, Abraham is chasing after the armies that took over the sack Sodom and Gomorrah, and he takes men with him who've been born into his house. And I know one can argue that in this context, perhaps it means household. And in fact, that word does get used in that exact way. But it's notable because Abraham lived in a tent, and yet that word is used here. But more importantly, you've got verses like Exodus 34, verse 26, where God is giving commands regarding his worship. And at that point, the house of God is the tabernacle. It's a tent. It's not a building. It's not a structure like that. So Exodus 34 verses 25 and 26 say, you shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice in anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover remain until the morning. The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of Yahweh your God. The house was a tent. So there's a completely false assumption that when you see your house, it has to be the structure that Solomon built. There's no reason to take it that way. As I mentioned already, David longed to worship God in his house. He was estranged from being in civil society. He was out in the wilderness. And we see this in other Psalms, like in Psalm 63, starts off, God, you are my God. I eagerly seek for you. I thirst for you. My body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water. And though David grieved over his plight, His separation from his people, from the tabernacle, and perhaps even literally he wore sackcloth, we don't know. That may again just be a picture. Nonetheless, he became a joke and people laughed at him. And we actually see examples of that. Later in the book of Samuel, 1 Samuel, he encounters Nabal. He'd been guarding Nabal and his sheep in the countryside. And so when it was time to shear Nabal's sheep, David sent his men to see if they could benefit from that. And when his men came up to Nabal, what does Nabal say to him? By the way, Nabal, is the word fool in Hebrew. Nabal says to him, who is David? Who is Jesse's son? Many slaves these days are running away from their masters. This is language of utter scorn and disdain. So it seems that whether the drunkards really sang songs about him or not, who knows? But if they did, Nabal must have heard those songs. So the second stanza, beginning in verse 13, is marked with a discourse device that indicates a major break. It begins, but ask for me, Yahweh. When you see that in the Psalms, there should be a new paragraph there. So if you see it in the middle of a paragraph, they didn't break your paragraphs right. David pleads with Yahweh to show him timely favor. He asks for God to save him and to pull him from the miry mud. He begs the Lord to rescue him from those who hate him. And notice he compares them to deep waters. His enemies he compares to deep waters. He asked for God to not let the mouth of the pit close over him. And that word pit is the same one you'll remember in the book of Genesis where Joseph's brothers grabbed him and they dropped him in a pit or lured him into a pit until they could figure out what to do with him. And it's the same word. It's a hole that has no escaping. Joseph couldn't escape, and David doesn't want to be put into a pit he can't escape from. And so probably commentators think that he's using this word pit here as a synonym for Sheol, the place of the dead. David asked the Lord to respond with his faithful love, his chesed, as they say in Hebrew. This is a word I think all of us have heard or should know. This is God's covenantal love. He begs for God to draw near to him. In fact, he longs for God to redeem him and to ransom him from his enemies. Basically, it would seem that he's asking God to do what it would take to restore David to Saul, or perhaps just back to society and not be in that wasteland of Judah. In the second strophe of this stanza, that is verses 19 through 21, David again reminds God of his insults, his shame, his disgrace, all that he has suffered. And David went from being a mighty hero. I mean, you know, the Hebrew is written in a much plainer way than what we would write a story. That is very clear. And sometimes I think it's easy for us to read these things and miss it, but he was a mighty hero. I mean, he was known throughout all of Israel. He was the one that killed Goliath. And now he's an outlaw. He's on the run. He's accused of usurping the throne. He's accused of wanting to harm the king. And so David is mocked at, he's laughed at, and he longed for someone to show him sympathy. but he received poison for his food and vinegar for his drink. And again, some commentators get tied up in knots over this because they said it can't really be poison, he would have died. It's a poem, it's a metaphor. And so instead of receiving hospitality and warmth, he's receiving bad things instead. So instead of food, he was receiving poison. And now, let's look at the harsh stroph that calls down curses on David's enemies. As I mentioned earlier, David links what was just said, poison for food, vinegar for drink, to those who persecuted him. He prays that God would make their own table a trap for them. And that word table, interestingly, can just mean dining table, but it's also the same word that's used for the table that they take of sacrificial meals in, ceremonial meals, where they offered their sacrifice and the people themselves were allowed to eat. That's the word that's used. The language of this imprecation is harsh. Robert Godfrey says, these imprecations are the most terrifying in all of the Psalter. He prays that his enemies may be impoverished and oppressed, that they may lose home and heritage, but even more, he prays that they may be damned. The final stanza starts with the same discourse device that the start of the second stanza was, and that is, but as for me, One commentator says the psalm concludes with a final acknowledgement of personal pain and a plea to be rescued. Salvation will result not only in benefit to the psalmist, but also in praise to God. This stands as a combination of prayer, dedication to praising God, giving Him thanks. It contains didactic lines that teach us about God. David says in verses 30 through 31, I will praise God's name with song and exalt him with Thanksgiving. That will please Yahweh more than an ox, more than a bull with horns and hooves. And by saying this, he makes a play on words. The Hebrew word for song is shir, the word for ox is shir. Same word except the vowel point is slightly different. And so he's coming across making a point that he makes in other Psalms. I don't think he's making this just because he can't go to the tabernacle. We see in Psalm 40 verse 6 that he says the same kind of thing. You do not delight in sacrifice and offering. And that comes in the middle of that Messianic section of Psalm 40. And then in another very well-known and beloved Psalm 51, Verses 16 through 17, David again says, you do not want a sacrifice or I would give it. You are not pleased with the burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, you will not despise a broken and humbled heart. David understood the gospel clearly. He trusted in the Lord with all his heart. And now he's an outlaw. The psalm turns from the laments and from the imprecations when David says, for the Lord, for Yahweh, listens to the needy and does not despise his own who are prisoners. There is now hope in his words, and he is teaching us through the psalm about God's heart. Even if you go through trial as David did, he says, you who seek God, take heart, be encouraged, even if you're going through trials like this. Then he ends with this statement that is sometimes translated, God will save Zion and rebuild the towns of Judah. His people will live there and settle in their own land. And this is another verse that the liberals take to mean that it was written by somebody like Jeremiah, or even later, Nehemiah. But the problem is the verb in Hebrew is not rebuild, it's just build, that's all it is. What would David mean by this, and build Jerusalem, or excuse me, the cities of Judah? Well, commentator Rawlinson has the proper meaning, I think. He says, build the cities of Judah means to maintain them and keep them from decay and ruin. Indeed, within the scope of the meaning of the word build, you can translate this correctly as build up the cities of Judah. So it's a false translation. that some versions render, and it's a false understanding that somebody later wrote these verses. These verses are proclaiming a time to come, a glorious time to come. Regarding the word Zion, now that's a puzzling word if it wasn't written later, because we don't really see it much earlier. But the thing is, nobody knows when that word came into being. Nobody's even quite sure where that word came from. There are several hypotheses about that. But we know that after David sacked the Jebusite city of Jerusalem, it came to be called Zion at times. And then Solomon later built a temple on the north end of that town on the hill, the highest point on the top of that mountain. And that mount, that hill came to be called Mount Zion. But here in this verse, it doesn't even have the term mount. So there's nothing that actually forces us to think that it was written later. at its very core meaning you can look this up in the lexicons Zion is the area where Yahweh dwells and some of you may remember the pastor Dave Reese used to point out that for us when we read Zion we should substitute in our minds church that's that's sort of the image of what David is talking about and it could be that's what he means here but nonetheless he's speaking of a time in the future But what was happening right there at David's time? The country was ruled by an ungodly man who had been rejected by God. It would seem that David is declaring that God will save his people and make them prosper in spite of the current king. There will come a day when that changes. The descendants of God's servant will inherit the land, it says. Is this not pointing us more clearly to Christ? This sounds a lot like the Sermon on the Mount and these sorts of things. The end of the Psalm is like the end of Psalm 22. It speaks of a glorious time in the future. So now let's turn and look at how this psalm actually points to Christ. There are about seven places in the New Testament that quote this psalm, and there are several other places that make mention of it. So I'd like to quickly go through those several places and examine how this psalm finds its fulfillment in Christ. In the first stanza, with its two strophes, it's a lament, as I've mentioned. At first, we might not think it's speaking of Jesus and his situation. But in the first strophe, verses one through four, It's verse four that is mentioned in John's gospel, the 15th chapter, the 25th verse. I want to read that to you. I thought I had that marked. Oh yeah, here it is. This is the 15th chapter of John, and Jesus is speaking, he's telling them, if the world hates you, you understand that it hated me before it hated you. And he goes on about that, and he speaks that if I had not done the works among them that I did, that no one else has done, they would not be guilty. And so in verse 25, he himself says, Jesus himself says, but this happened so that the statement written in their law might be fulfilled. They hated me for no reason. So Jesus himself is applying this psalm to himself. James Montgomery Boyce, commentator, pastor, who's passed away now, said, could Jesus have prayed like this? The answer is, of course. Not only could he have prayed like this, he did. He prayed like this in the Garden of Gethsemane, at least, and perhaps on other occasions. In John 15, 25, which I just read, Jesus quotes verse four from this psalm of himself. If we realize that Jesus knew what was coming, then it is easy for us to say that he would pray like this, and he certainly knew what was coming. He was overwhelmed in the garden. Matthew uses the language sorrowful and troubled. Mark says he was in distress and troubled. And Luke records that an angel came to comfort him, and that he was sweating drops that were like blood. He was in great distress. Indeed, he did pray like this. And as we think about this, we also need to remember what it says in the book of Hebrews, speaking about how Jesus prayed. In the book of Hebrews in chapter five, verses seven through 10, it says, during his earthly life, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was the son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. After he was perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. And he was declared by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. So again, quoting from James Boyce, he's referring to these verses in Hebrew, the book of Hebrews, he says, these verses tell us that in his humanity, Jesus was not exempt from those feelings of being almost overwhelmed that sometimes overtake us. But Jesus prayed, was heard by the Father, and grew in the knowledge of God's ways and in obedience as a result of his suffering. Obviously, that is our pattern. When we feel overwhelmed, we must pray and trust God to keep and teach us too. So what about the second stroke of this first stanza, verses five through 12? How are we to understand verse five, which speaks of his foolishness or sin? Jesus was sinless. How can these be the words of Jesus? Well, Augustine taught that, quote, when the Messiah says, my foolishness and my iniquities, he speaks of the sins of men, which were imputed to him, and for which he suffered and died under the curse of the law, which treated him as if he were a sinner in consequence of the sins thus imputed to him. And indeed, when we pray or sing from the Psalms that speak of our innocence, speaks of our righteousness, we know that it is in Christ that we sing those Psalms. Because of the great exchange, Christ became sin for us, and he granted us, imputed his righteousness to us. And so both can be true. So what about his prayer to not let those who put their hope in God to be disgraced because of him? You know that there was great shame for Jesus or anyone who hung on a cross essentially naked. Jesus warned Peter that Satan wanted to shift him and the other apostles, so he prayed for Peter, that God would restore Peter. And like David on the run as an outlaw, when Jesus was arrested, his humiliation was a shameful thing. He had his followers who had been following him and thought he was going to be the next king, and now all of a sudden he's an outlaw. also jesus did endure insults and slander during his ministry we read this all through the gospels pharisees scoffed at him saying things like if he were a prophet he would know who's touching him this kind of language in matthew chapter eleven verse nineteen jesus said the son of man came eating and drinking and they say look at him he's a glutton and a drunkard a friend of tax collectors and sinners and while on the cross people laughed at him they mocked him even in his pain and agony hanging on the cross They laughed at him and said, he saved others, he cannot save himself. He's the king of Israel, let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him. It was a joke of the town at the end of his life. In Psalm 69 verse nine, that's quoted in John chapter two, verse 17. And he turned over tables and he drove out the money changers and he drove them out of the temple. And it was at that point it says his disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. And in the second line of verse nine, it's quoted in Romans chapter 15, verse three, where Paul says, for even Christ did not please himself. On the contrary, as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. The first stroke of that second stanza, which is verse 13 through 14, excuse me, 18, 13 through 18, it's a prayer. David was praying about the items in his lament, as we've already looked at. What about Christ? Well, just like David, this would have been his prayer in some manner. But at the end of that stanza, the very end it says, in verse 21 it reads, they gave me gall for my food and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. As mentioned earlier, that is recorded in the Gospels, the fact that gall was given to him and that sour wine was given to him while he was on the cross. And now we come to the imprecations. Jesus surely would not have prayed these imprecations. Some of the commentators will even say that. In fact, they're adamant about it. In contrast, they point out He prayed on the cross. We all know this. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And Jesus, yet Jesus is the mediatorial king. He is the one who will judge the nations. What does it say in Psalm 2? Psalm 2 verse 9 says, You shall break them with an iron rod, and dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel. This is speaking of Jesus, King Jesus. So indeed it is King Jesus who prays these imprecations. In Romans chapter 11 verses 9 and 10, Those quote the 22nd and 23rd of our psalm in the middle of those imprecations. Paul's pointing this out. He says, let their table before them become a snare, and when they are in peace, let it become a trap. He also says, let their eyes be darkened so they cannot see. And so this, Paul is quoting these two verses in the midst of where he's speaking of the hardening of Israel. He's saying these imprecations apply to Israel. They've hardened their hearts against the Messiah. Then in the first chapter of Acts, Peter is speaking about Judas Iscariot, and he quotes from verse 25 of our psalm. He says, for it is written in the book of Psalms, let his dwelling become desolate, let no one live in it. And commentator Michael Wilcock points out very helpfully, Paul and Peter matter of factly apply the greater part of this implication to those in Israel who rejected Christ and betrayed him. We need to remind ourselves of two things. First, it occurs in the you section of the psalm. In other words, he's not saying I, I, I, it's a prayer, he's speaking to God. the speaker explicitly is handing over to god the responsibility for judgment on his opponents he's not looking for a revenge of his own god's judgment is perfect and unerring and it is he not the one who is praying to him who will extract the penalty upon the wicked secondly to suggest that such prayers are even less fitting on christ's lips than on the psalmist as some do the reply is that on the contrary no one ever had a greater right to to utter them. No one knew better than the enormity of the crime and the irredeemable wickedness of those who committed it. He had in mind, of course, not the soldiers who nailed him to the cross. Forgive them, he praised. They do not know what they are doing. But those who knew, as Paul says, were hardened, who saw the evidences and rejected him, and in that sense knew perfectly well what they were doing. And it does seem that, as you read the gospel accounts, I mean, they actually say, let those curses fall upon us, this kind of thing. We have no king but Caesar, and they are rejecting the king that God has given them. And finally, I want to point out that in verse 26 of the Implications, it sounds an awful lot like Isaiah 53, verse 4. So, 69, 26 says, for they persecute the one you struck, and talk about the pain of those you wounded. And that sort of seems to be echoed in 53, chapter 53 of Isaiah is that great chapter that speaks of Christ. It's the one that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading in his chariot when Philip came upon him and shared the gospel with him. In verse four of chapter 53 of Isaiah says, yet he himself bore our sicknesses and he carried our pains. But we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. And indeed, Jesus was struck down by God. So how do we apply this to ourselves? How do we relate to these implications? It's not just in this psalm. There are several psalms that are clearly strong language. Jackie and I had a dear, godly colleague in East Asia who actually translated for an Indian language in Mexico, the New Testament. She and her husband then came to East Asia and served us as administrators and helped us in a number of ways. And she was even Presbyterian. She was a dear, godly woman. But she said to me one time that she did not know how to read or to relate to the imprecatory Psalms. She loved the Psalms, but she would skip the ones that had imprecations in them. And I hope we don't feel that way, but some of us might. It makes us uncomfortable. How are we to pray these things? So I'd like to let Robert Godfrey offer several thoughts on this. Paraphrasing him at first and then quoting him, he says, these imprecations often lead people to think that there is a difference in the religion of the Old Testament and the New Testament. That's what we sort of think. But he goes on to say, Psalm 69 cannot conflict with the New Testament religion because it is often quoted in the New Testament, as I've already pointed out. It contains some of the clearest anticipations of Christ and his work in the book of Psalms. Godfrey goes on to say, what we do need always to remember is that imprecations apply to those who intransigently and unrepentantly persevere in evil against God. They apply especially to those who have known the covenant of God and have knowingly spurned it. That is what Paul was teaching us in Romans. So we're not to pray these sorts of prayers against individuals and people that we know. I don't think the scriptures teach us that anywhere. We're to pray that God would have mercy on them, our enemies. But these are prayers that we can pray against God's enemies, and how? We don't need to be shy. We don't need to stay away from them because they make us feel uncomfortable. And I think, again, this commentator, Michael Wilcock, really explains it far better than I could. He says, it is to the great comfort of all right-thinking people that determined destructive evil should in the end meet its match and be itself destroyed. That is why so many of the Psalms rejoice in God's coming judgment. It is as if it were from the pain and distress of Good Friday that the terrible condemnation arises. But it is only on that basis, the assured overthrow of the gospel's enemies, that the ecstatic praises and glowing promises of the psalm's closing lines make sense. Whatever its origin, it becomes a coherent statement of New Testament truth. Therefore, I suggest that we can read and sing and apply the imprecations in our own lives. If you have ever been in a situation which leaves you just feeling helpless and overwhelmed, and I think all of us have had that sometime, and if not, you will. And we likely will face persecution. It will feel like you're sinking in quicksand. It will feel like the floodwaters are overwhelming you. You should read, sing, and pray the Psalms, and even pray Psalm 69. This psalm reminds us that God already knows our sin, and that's a sweet thing, as Spurgeon says. He says, it ought to render confession easy when we are assured that all is already known. When we go to God and confess our sin, we're not telling him something he didn't know. Moreover, sin should not ever prevent us from coming to God for deliverance from distress, for with God, repentance always follows with forgiveness. At seminary, they teach the preachers to not end your sermon with a quote, but this quote is far better than anything I could come up with. He's a Psalm scholar, he's a great man, his name's Mark Futado, and he says this far better than I can, so I'm gonna break that rule and end with his quote. He says, we should also remember that God knows our pain and that God knows our hearts. Even in such deep distress, the psalmist had a heart remarkably devoted to God. He was enduring the shame for God's sake. Heartfelt passion for God burned within him. He was willing to bear the insults of those who were actually insulting God himself. While this was truly David's experience, it was ultimately the experience of the Lord Jesus Christ, who burned with passion for the house of God and who bore the insults of those who insulted God. As it was Christ's experience, we should not be surprised if at times it is our experience as well. Would you please stand with me as we close with prayer and then we'll follow that by singing Psalm 69D. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are thankful for your word. We are thankful for the Psalms. Father, they are deep and meaningful, and they get at the core of human experience. David and the other authors wrote these things by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit. And so we pray that we would learn to trust you, O Father, as David did, when he was being overwhelmed and chased and persecuted, as our Lord Jesus felt the weight of the world on him. and your curses on him. I pray, Father, that we would know how to respond in like manner and that is continue to look to you for our salvation, for you to redeem us from these hard times. Lord, we thank you that we can pray and sing the imprecatory Psalms without embarrassment or false guilt. They are Christ's Psalms. John Calvin called the Psalms the fifth gospel. And these psalms have been given to his church, to your church, to sing, and so we thank you for the psalms, Lord. We thank you for this psalm, and we pray this in Jesus' name.