Psalm 69. I'm not going to touch every verse in this chapter, but the message in this chapter is a substitutionary person and work of Jesus Christ for His elect, His people. This psalm is clearly about Jesus Christ. As I said earlier, it is quoted about 16 times, probably more than any of the other Scriptures in the New Testament. It's quoted from this psalm. Verses 1-4 we will see our substitute, the man. We see the man. Jesus Christ here in this portion of Scripture. Our substitute. One who took our place before God. He took God's wrath. We can't even begin to imagine what that is. The wrath of God against sin. So what we will see here in verses 1-4 is our substitute pouring out his soul before God. As a man, he trusted in God to save him. He trusted in God, just as you and I are to trust in God. As a man, he trusted in God to save him, to keep him, to bring him through it. He'd have said in Hebrews 5.7, with strong cryings and tears, he offered up prayers and supplications unto Him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared. Now in these verses, we can hear the agony that he's going through. the deep, deep agony of the Lord Jesus Christ bearing our sin. Now you and I who believe have been given a sense, a measure of the guilt of our sins. That's what repentance is. When God enables us to repent, we do feel in a measure the guilt of sin. He felt it in its full measure. You and I cannot feel it in the full measure of it. He did. He did. And so he says here in verse 1, the very first thing he says is, Save me! Save me! This is what I was saying in meaning when I said he trusted in God. He trusted that man, Jesus Christ, as a man trusted in God. And he said, Save me! The waters of trouble have flooded into my soul. The waters have come in unto my soul. He's not talking about just outward trouble. He's talking about this trouble coming in to his soul. being engulfed. You know, when water comes over you, it engulfs you. And this trouble, this being made sin, this dealing with the powers of darkness, He said, they have just covered me like water. It's flooded into my soul. It's soul trouble. It's soul trouble. And listen, I sink in deep mire. There's no standing in mire. He's speaking here when they would put a prisoner in a pit. It was a well that had been dug and it's maybe gone somewhat dry, but in the bottom of it, it's wet and it's just nothing solid. It's mire. And that's what our Lord came into. He came into this mire of sin that you and I are. Not that if we live in it, it's about us, but it's what we are. And He came into this mire of sin and He says, Save me, for the waters have come into my soul, and I sink. I sink in deep mire where there's no standing. There's no standing in this mire. But I tell you where there is standing, there's standing in the grace of God on that rock, Jesus Christ. There is a standing in Him. But anything short of Christ, there's no standing. There's no standing in the day of judgment when it comes, not if it comes, when it comes. There's no standing except on the rock Christ Jesus. But here is our substitute. He's dealing with what I'm not going to have to deal with. And He says that I'm so weary... Look at verse 3, "...I am weary of my crying." He cried unto God. As I said there in the earlier part of it in Hebrews, with strong supplications and cryings, He offered up prayers. He said, I'm weary of crying. Help me, help me, help me. That's why, you know, on the cross, He said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why are you so far from the words of my roaring? The reason being is He's suffering for our sins. He's suffering what we ought to suffer. He's taking my punishment, your punishment. God forsook Him that He may not forsake me. He literally forsook Him that He will not forsake me and forsake you who believe. Will not be forsaken. This is the promise in Hebrews. I will never, no never, no never leave you. or forsake you." But he was forsaken. He says, the waters have flooded into my soul, I'm sinking in this deep mire, I'm so weary of my crying, and they that hate me are more than the hairs of my head. More than the hairs of my head. The whole human race hated him. The whole human race doesn't hate me, they don't even know me. But the whole human race hates the God of this Bible. And the God of this Bible is Jesus Christ. And He says, "...they that hate Me are more than the hairs of My head." He faced trouble without, and that soul trouble with it. Now listen, He felt their hatred. He felt the full measure of it. But here's what's astounding to me. He felt the full measure of my hatred to Him. Before He saved me and before He saved you, you and I hated Him. And we proved it by our works, by the things that we did, and the fact that we didn't believe Him. We called God a liar. until He saved us by His grace." Aren't you glad salvation is by grace? There's not a soul in here to be saved. There's not a soul on this earth to be saved. None of us will be saved. We hated Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was and is the Christ of this book. He was and is the most hated person in existence. And that's not an overstatement. That's not an overstatement. And why? Here's why. First of all, because He's God. And we have a natural enmity toward God. The natural mind is enmity with God. They hated Him because He's holy. He's light. We are darkness. He said, you will not come to the light lest your deeds be reproved. They hated Him because He exposed them for who they were. They hated Him for it. He told them the truth. You're of your father the devil. I want the Lord to tell us the truth. Tell me the truth. You're not going to be saved with a lie. God has never saved any person under a lie. God didn't save me under a lie, and then I came and learned the doctrines of grace. That's not so. God saved me when I looked into the face of Jesus Christ, and from Him I have learned the doctrines. I've learned the truth. You learn the truth from the truth. Our Lord was hated because He's God, because He's holy, because He exposed therein our sinfulness. And He felt the full measure of what ungodly hatred is. I've never felt the full measure of hate. But He did. He felt it. And then notice here in verse 4. They that hate Me without a cause." That's quoted over in the New Testament. They hated Me without a cause. They had no reason. What reason does anyone of this human race have to hate God? What reason? We have no reason. I wrote this in a bulletin not long ago. God had every reason to hate Esau. Esau had no reason to hate God. Everything Esau had... Esau became very wealthy. Everything he had, God gave him. But God had every right to hate Esau. He despised his birthright. He despised what God gave him. But he says here in verse 4, "...they that hate me, And notice it doesn't say those who hate it, it's those who hate me. They hate me now. Listen, in hell they hate Him. They still hate Him in hell. They don't love Him there. They wouldn't believe Him there anymore. They believed Him here. It takes a powerful work of God for a dead sinner like you and me to believe Him. It takes the same power for God to save me and enable me to believe as it took when God created the heavens and the earth. In fact, and I'm just going to say this as an example, when God created the heavens and the earth, there was no resistance. He said, let there be light, there was light. But I tell you what, whenever you and I heard the Gospel, our old nature, and our old nature still to this day, resists, doesn't it? There's still a resistance. There's still. Do you ever get disappointed? Do you have plans to do something, and you get disappointed, you get upset about it? That's nothing more than your old nature resisting the will of God. That's what that is. He says here, "...they that hate Me without a cause are more than the hairs of Mine head. They that would destroy Me, be My enemies wrongfully, are mighty, mighty. Then I restored that which I took not away." I restored that which I took not away. What did He restore here? Well, first of all, He restored the glory of God. You and I can now see something in a measure, and someday we'll see the full-blown measure of it, but in a measure right now we can see something of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He's restored the glory of God. And then He restored righteousness. Adam took it away. He restored it. He restored to us righteousness. In Jesus Christ we are righteous. We are right with God. And then He restored peace. Adam took away that peace. The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world. He restored peace with God. Does that mean anything to us? To have peace with God? Then He restored fellowship. We can truly have fellowship with God. God who is unapproachable, God who is light, God who is inaccessible, we can now have access to the throne of grace, to the presence of God, and we can have fellowship with God. He restored that fellowship. And then He restored life. Life. We have the life of God. In the soul we have the life of God. Then He restored truth. Adam lost away the truth and the life. Jesus Christ restored that. And then, listen, He restored the image of God, which we lost in Adam. Sin has marred that image. Marred that image. But that image has been restored. Now are ye the sons of God. He restored the image of God. But you notice something here. And some people try to, some that I've read, they really try to, they kind of like, They take this verse and they apply these verses to Christ, and they get to verse 5 and they kind of apply it to David, and not to Christ. "'O God, Thou knowest my foolishness and my sins.'" And look over in the margin of my Bible, my sins is my guiltiness. That's why I said, He felt and knew my guilt. And I'm telling you, only God can do that. When He was made to be sin for us, He felt the guilt of our sins. It wasn't just a charge. You know, I think you know this, I know this. If one of you murder somebody, and I'm going to go down to the law, before the law, and I'm going to take your place, I'm going to stand in your place, and I'm going to take the death penalty, and I'm going to die in your place, would the law be satisfied? No, it wouldn't. Because the actual guilty person is still free. He goes free. He's guilty. He didn't get the punishment. But I'm telling you this, in the substitutionary work of Christ, my sins was completely transferred to Him. He became guilty. He stood before God's law as me. God's law dealt with me in dealing with Christ. That's how complete His substitutionary work is. And that's why you and I can go free. You know, there's a Scripture, and I wish I'd have thought of it, but I didn't. But I'm going to have to paraphrase a little bit. But there's two things that's an abomination to God. One is for an innocent man to be charged as guilty, and for a guilty man to be charged with innocence, to be let go innocent. Scripture says that's an abomination to God. Because God is just God. When He punished His Son, He took our sins to Himself. And the law of God dealt with us in dealing with Him. And now the law is satisfied. As far as God's law is concerned, I died. I died in Christ when He was crucified. I died. I was punished. I was died. And now the law has nothing against me. That's why it's impossible, it's impossible that Jesus Christ died for every son of Adam. Because it would be double jeopardy. If He died to put away the sins of every son of Adam, every son of Adam is going to be saved. For God to be a just God, they have to be saved. Oh God, He said, Thou knowest My foolishness, My sins are not hid from Thee. He's a real substitute. He bore our sins in His body on the tree. And in verse 6, listen to how Christ prays for His people. Listen to how He prays for us. Let none who wait on Thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for My sake. Let none of them who wait on You, O God, be ashamed for My sake. Why? For my sake. Because they trust me. Because they look to me. Because they believe me. Don't let them be ashamed for my sake. You know why God's forgiven me and you? For Christ's sake. That's why God forgives us. He forgives us our sins for Christ's sake because He bore our sins. And for His sake, He forgives. Aren't you glad that that's how it works? Because if he forgave me because I was, you know, I live right, and I do right, and we don't even get it right. By the time we get out of bed, we're already getting it wrong in our thoughts, in our attitude. You get up on the wrong side, you got up on the wrong side of the bed. No, that's just you. That's just you. I thank God that salvation doesn't depend on me. Forgiven for Christ's sake. Saved for Christ's sake. That's what he's saying here. Let none who wait on the Lord be ashamed for waiting, and listen, none who look to Christ by faith will be confounded in the end. You won't be ashamed. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel. He told Timothy, don't be ashamed of the Gospel, nor of me. He's a prisoner. Don't be ashamed of me or the gospel. I'm not ashamed of Jesus Christ. Those Pharisees and Sadducees, they were ashamed of Him. They were ashamed of Him. We know you, you're the carpenter's son. How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? How knoweth this man letters, having never been to our school? I mean, that's what they're saying. They were ashamed of Him. They were ashamed of His family. They were ashamed of the way He dressed. They were ashamed of His appearance. There's no beauty that we should desire Him. Not that He was ugly, but He was common. He looked like His disciples looked. That's why Judas had to give Him a kiss when they brought that army out there. He was so identified with His disciples, Judas said, I'll have to point Him out to you. That's how identified Jesus Christ is with us. Let none of them be ashamed or confounded." And his prayer here is to the covenant God, the God of Israel. And his prayer is for those who wait on Him and those who seek, and they are one and the same. Those who wait are the same ones who seek. They seek the Lord. The Apostle Paul said, that he gloried in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't glory in his achievements. He didn't glory in his education. He didn't glory in his ancestry. He had some things he could glory in before men. But he said, I don't glory in these things. He didn't glory in the degrees he had. He sat at one of the most brilliant men of his day and learned. He said His feet grew up. But He said, here's what I glory in. The cross. Christ crucified. I'm not ashamed of that man that hung on that cross. I'm not ashamed of Him. I'm not ashamed of that Nazarene. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Well, one did. Jesus Christ. In verse 7, all that Christ did, listen, He says here in verse 6, let them not be ashamed for My sake, and let those that seek Thee, let them not be confounded for My sake, O God of Israel, the covenant God, because for Thy sake, He said, let them not be ashamed or confounded for My sake. But now He's speaking here to the Father and His relationship to the Father and the mission He was on here. Because for thy sake I have borne reproach. I bear reproach, Father, for your sake." They said, he said he's a son of God. He's a blasphemer. They wanted to stone him. They called him everything under the sun. They called him a wine-bibber, a gluttonous man. I mean, it wouldn't matter what he did. They was going to just, you know, like children, name-calling all the time. But He says here, Father, all that I have done, I have done for Your sake. I have done this for Your glory, is what He is saying. I have done this for Your glory, because for Thy sake I have borne reproach. The only way for God to be a just God is Jesus Christ. The way. He is the way. The way He came into this world, the way He took upon Him flesh, the way He went about doing good, the way He obeyed the law, the way He produced righteousness, the way He went to the cross, the way He went to the grave, and the way He's gone back to glory. He's glorified God in all of it. All of it. Now listen here in verse 8. He became a stranger to His brethren. His own family, the other brothers and sisters that he had there in the house growing up with him, he became a stranger to them. Peter said, I don't know him. Peter said that three times. Three times he was given the opportunity to stand up for him. He said, I don't know him. I don't know him. No one wanted to own Him. He came into His own, and His own received Him not. He came into His own creation, and they didn't even know Him. They didn't know Him. He was despised and rejected of men, there in Isaiah 53. But in all of this, He says in verse 9, "...the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." That's quoted, I think, over in John 2.17, when He turned over the table of the money changers. He was taken up, listen, He was taken up with His Father's glory, His honor is what He was taken up with. He was taken up with the honor of His Father, listen, so much that it consumed Him. I wouldn't have thought it would consume us. I do, I wouldn't have thought it would consume me. God's honor. The zeal of thine health has eaten me up, it has consumed me. And then he speaks here in verses 10 and 12, as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, because he says, when I wept, when I wept, Now, listen, he didn't just shed some tears. When he wept, he wept. He wept over Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you together as a hen does gather her brood, but you would not. He wept over Jerusalem. He was called a deceiver. He was called a blasphemer. The town drunks made up songs about him. That's what it says there. The town drunks made up songs about him. They sit in the gate, they speak against me, the leaders of the city, and I was the song of the drunkards. The drunks made up songs about me." That's how bad they thought of him. Then verses 13-19, and I'm just going to briefly touch on this, but it dawned on me after going over this before coming down, I thought this, you reckon this was his prayer in Gethsemane? In verse 13-19, But as for me, my prayer is unto Thee, O Lord, in an acceptable and opportune time. O God, in the multitude of Thy mercy, hear me in the truth of Thy salvation. Deliver me out of the mire. Let me not sink. Let me be delivered from them that hate me and out of the deep waters. Let not the water flood, not just a trickle here and there. We're not talking ankle deep. Water flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up. Don't let this drown me. And listen, and let not the pit, the grave, the hole they put me in, shut her mouth upon me. Hear me, O Lord, for Thy lovingkindness is good. In all His sufferings He never, like Job, He never charged God with folly. And no man suffered like this man suffered. All you that pass by, he said, is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow? Turn unto me according to the multitude that attend to me. Hide not your face, don't veil your face from me." I was reading where a king, he would put a veil in front of him. to where you couldn't see Him. And He would only let certain people, His high ministers come back there and talk to Him. He wouldn't let just any of His servants come back there if He didn't want to see them. And this is what He's alluding to. Don't put a veil up there and keep me out. He's feeling what I feel. God ought to keep me out. God ought to keep me and you out. There ought to be a veil there that keeps us out. He's feeling my guilt. He's feeling, listen, He feels my shame. Because it says He despised the shame. He feels it. Hide not thy face from thy servant. You notice He didn't call Himself a son here. He doesn't call Himself a son. He calls Himself a servant. A servant. For I'm in trouble. I'm in deep, deep, deep trouble. You and I have never been in trouble like this. We're talking about the wrath of God, about the fall on Him. I'm in deep trouble. Draw nigh unto my soul, redeem it, and deliver me, because my enemies thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor. My adversaries are all... You know, every one of my adversaries. God knows every one of your adversaries, mine. They're the same as Christ. But after I read that, I thought, This is probably his prayer in Gethsemane. Go back and read that and you think of him in the Garden of Gethsemane. That prayer would fit that situation. He says in verse 20 and 21, Reproach hath broken my heart. I read something here today that was interesting. Reproach hath broken my heart. Now you and I have had broken hearts. If God has saved us, He's broken our hearts. We've had a broken heart. I was reading today, and I didn't know this, but there is really a medical term for this, a medical situation, that a person can be under such distress, such sorrow, that their heart actually ruptures. That the heart actually ruptures, that the stress can be so great, and so strong. And the person that I read this from said, you know, we read where it says, they pierced my hands and my feet, and that did happen. They pierced my hands and my feet. He said it may be that his heart ruptured under the distress of all the pain and the suffering. I don't know. But it is a medical A thing that can happen under such distress. Reproach. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine doing good to someone and all they do is reproach you for it? You've treated them like a son. You've treated them so well, and yet they turn around and spit in your face? That's exactly what we did to our God. He said, it's broken my heart. And it does break your heart when that happens. And he said, I was full of heaviness over it. I looked for some to take pity. I looked for somebody to take pity. But there was none. No one took pity on me. No one. I look for comforters. You know, when you're sick, or when you're hurting, or when you're going through a deep loss, it's good to have comforters. He had zero. Zero comforters. The Father didn't even comfort him at this time. He was left alone. All because of His love for me and bearing my sins and you. I looked for comforters, but I found none. Here's what I found. They gave me gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Now here's what's interesting. You want to talk about the accuracy of the Bible? This is written hundreds and hundreds of years before Christ was crucified. And what was given to Him? This right here. This is what gives to gall, poison, and sour vinegar. That's what? Vinegar to drink. You know, sin, He's bearing our sins in His body on the tree. Sin is a bitter, bitter, bitter, bitter thing to Him. Now, man drinks iniquity like water. There's pleasure in sin for a season, not for Him. There is for us, but not for Him. To Him, it's a very bitter thing. He's bearing our sins. This shows Him drinking the bitterness of our sins. But it also just shows the accuracy of God's work. All these hundred years later, that's exactly what happened. And in verse 26, if they persecute Him, listen, they persecute Him whom thou hast smitten. They're persecuting Me. They whipped Him, they beat Him, they put a crown of thorns on His head, but He says here, they're persecuting Me. They're persecuting the one whom you've smitten. You're the one doing the smiting. The Father smote Him for us. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. Your salvation, my salvation, it was extremely costly. I mean extremely costly. It cost him the blood of his veins, the blood that flowed through his veins. It had to be shed. You couldn't stick a needle in his arm and draw the blood out like you go to the hospital and give blood. It had to come out in a very painful way, because that's what you and I deserve. We deserve punishment. Well, they persecute Him whom thou hast smitten, and they talk, they gossip. They gossip. Can you imagine what the gossip went on at the foot of that cross? Well, we may have some of it. He saved others, Himself He cannot save. If He be the Son of God, let Him come down. He had to listen to all that. And that entered into His heart. He felt that to its fullest degree. No, they gossip to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded. Notice who's doing the smiting and the wounding here. I read it to you in Isaiah 53. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our inequities. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. And thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. The Lord Jesus Christ has called He's our Passover Lamb. Behold, John said, the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. He's taken away my sins. And I'll wind this up here. In verse 29, Christ anticipates His exaltation in the midst of all His sorrows and all His sufferings. He says this, but I am poor and sorrowful, Because that's what you and I are. You and I are a bunch of poor, sorrowful people. I am poor and sorrowful. Let thy salvation, O God, set me on high. The suffering Savior is now the reigning monarch. Oh, our Lord knew that His Father would not leave His soul in the grave, and He will not leave those in Christ in the grave either. Well, if you and I could just look beyond the grave, if we could just look past the cemetery, look past the event of dying, if we can just look past that and see, just look into glory, because we have the Word of God and we can look into glory through the Word of God. Just read it. Paradise. It's called paradise. Paradise. If we would set our minds on things above, if we could really grab a hold of what we have in Jesus Christ, we would be ready to die. We would be ready. I mean, we'd be anxious about doing it. We would. In verse 13 and 36, He said, I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. You reckon we could do that under such trials? Our trials are not compared to His. And we could do that? You think we could magnify Him with a song and thanksgiving? This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or a bullock, better than sacrifice. The humble see this and be glad you see it. You're glad you are. And your heart shall live that seek God. For the Lord hears the poor and despises not His prisoners. Paul called himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ all the time. Let the heaven and earth praise Him, the sea and everything that moves in it. Let it praise God. It all belongs to Him. None of this belongs to me. You know the best reason I can give you for not littering? It's God's earth. It's His. We should take care of it. We should mow the grass. Tommy and Johnny mow this yard over here and keep it looking so good all the time. Because it's the Lord's. It's the Lord's. The Lord's house ought to be the best looking anyway. You don't have to be the most expensive. I mean, you can be poor and make your house look good, clean. Let everything do what they do in praise of God. For God will save Zion, the church, and He'll build the cities of Judah that they may dwell there and have it in possession. The seed also of His servants, they will inherit it. They that love His name. This is the key right here. There are people who believe Calvinism have gone to hell. The Pharisees believed in election. They believed that. And they perished. And nobody ever perished that loves Jesus Christ. They that love His name. shall dwell there." Everybody there loves him. Everybody there loves him. All right.