Psalm 69 is presented as the cry of Jesus Christ in his suffering, bearing the trespasses of humanity. The sermon likens the overwhelming judgment Christ faced to the immense power of Niagara Falls and the accumulation of sin behind a dam, which ultimately broke upon Christ on the cross. This suffering, though intense and marked by rejection and mockery, resulted in restoration and a greater life for believers than Adam originally possessed. The message concludes by urging listeners to trust in Christ's redemptive work, which offers salvation from sin's penalty, power, and presence, and ultimately from its very possibility.
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Before we read this, we'd like to express our sincerest thanks to the conveners of this conference and all who have shared in the responsibility of it during the week and in the past few months. We certainly appreciate the invitation of coming, being extended to us to come here. We also appreciate all the prayers of all God's people as you prayed for us. before we came and during the week that we've been here we appreciate all the fellowship that we have had the privilege to enjoy. In addition to that we appreciate the hospitality that has been extended to us personally.
I'm speaking from Mabel and myself when I say we. We have certainly enjoyed the hospitality And I have taken on a rather spiritual posture since I came here. My pound has gained five pounds. And perhaps when I get on the scales at home, my pound may have gained ten pounds. I didn't dare weigh while I was here this week, but I feel the evidence of it nonetheless. I appreciate the choir, and they're singing. Somebody heard them talking about it, that they sang two nights for us here, and I appreciated each night they did.
And I heard some of them saying that, talking about how long they practiced before they sang. And I said, well, they ought to take up preaching. You have to get up without practicing. I mean, you don't get a chance to practice. But nevertheless, it's been a great week. We certainly have enjoyed it. And when you think about us, pray for us. Psalm sixty-nine. Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. I 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. They that would destroy me, be in mine enemies wrongfully or 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 reproach 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 prayers unto thee, 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 loving kindness 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 nigh 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 look for some to take pity, for 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. Sure that the Lord will bless to our hearts the reading of His precious Word again this evening. I've been looking this week at some of the Messianic Psalms, and these that we have looked at, certainly are not all the Messianic Psalms that you will find in the Book of Psalms. There are several others, but these are perhaps some of the most well-known that we have looked at. And some of those that we perhaps find a little more interesting or certainly are perhaps a little more familiar to us in regards to our interpretation.
But nonetheless, we tonight are looking at this one where some tell us that this is the Psalm of the trespass offering. And what a tremendous thought it is as we realize that It is an expression and it is the cry of the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ in regards to the afflictions which have come upon him, but it is because of the trespasses of someone else. In this we hear the communion of the soul of the Lord Jesus Christ with God the Father. And we see him here as the one who is able to save him from death, as well as the one who judges righteously.
A few years ago, a few of us took a trip up to Niagara Falls. I had never been there before. I'd heard a great deal about Niagara Falls, had seen pictures of it. But of course, pictures are not the same as see in the place. And I remember as I went and I began to walk around that place and come up rather close to it, that is as close as you're permitted to go on the banks there. I looked at that scene and I listened to the torrent of waters that was going over that fall. And then I listened to the stories that some were telling us about how many millions of gallons of water flowed over that falls.
And then I heard the stories of those who had tried, and many unsuccessfully, to go across the falls and come up down at the bottom in some kind of a craft that they would build for themselves. And as I thought about this, I wondered at the tremendous power and I wondered at the punishment that one would endure as they would go through this kind of an experience. And then I remembered, too, that there was a day whenever man began to sin in this world.
And in the Garden of Eden, man sinned, and he became alienated from God. And every man then in succession, as he came on the scene, he sinned against God. And the question of sin was not dealt with. And so, and the language of Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse, in his exposition on the Book of Romans, He says to us that God built a dam, and all the sins of men and women rolled up in sort of a lake or a pond or large body of water, and God continued to build the dam and to hold back the judgment that was rightfully due to the human family behind the dam.
The grace of God was being manifested. You remember, as men would on the day of atonement, as it is recorded in Luke chapter sixteen, once a year the high priest would take up the question of sin. He would go into the tabernacle. He would go behind the veil, and there he would go with the blood of the atonement sacrifice. But he would come back out every year. And he knew full well that a year from today that someone else would have to go in, he himself or someone would have to go in and deal with this same situation again.
The question of sin was never fully settled. And the Bible tells us that the blood of bulls and goats, it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin. And so here was this building up. of this continual building up of this storehouse, of the wrath of a sin-hating God against the sins of the world. And then in the words of Dr. Barnhouse, he tells us that then one day that God built a little island down below the dam. And on that island he faced a cross, and on that cross there hung a man.
and that man was the Son of God. And then God broke the dam, and he allowed all of the wrath of a sin-hating God to rush down upon this one who was on this one little island down at the base of the dam. And when all of the wrath of God and all of his holiness and all of his righteousness, when it was all spent, The cross was still there, and the man was still on the cross. He bore in his body our sins on the tree.
In the wrath of God, in all of its fury, didn't take him off the tree. He was not swept along with the tide. And so here, while the Lord Jesus Christ is enduring this judgment for sin, We hear the distressful cry that comes from his lips, Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. You see, it is such an easy thing for us to miss the forcefulness of the words of the psalmist. You see, we are so prone to read and skip along and move on to something else and say, Well, what else is down in the chapter?
But do we see the intensity of the sufferings that the Lord Jesus Christ is experiencing here? He is speaking about a judgment that is coming upon him. And in the language of the psalmist, it's a judgment of water, which is in the language here. He's showing us how that here is the torrents that are being poured out and kneaded out upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says that as the waters are come in unto my soul. Now, going back to our story a while ago, about those persons that went across Niagara Falls. Now, if they could keep the falls out of the vessel, they could do pretty good, I suppose.
It's sort of like somebody says, if you get out in the ocean in a boat, you're all right with the ocean and the boat. If the boat is in the ocean, but you get in trouble when the ocean gets in the boat. And so it is here that the Lord Jesus Christ is not only in the boat and in the ocean, but now he says that the ocean is getting into the boat. The waters are come in unto my soul. You think of the threatening set of circumstances that he is speaking of at that particular time. And so it is not only a judgment of water, but it is a judgment of wickedness as well.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing, and I am come into the deep waters where the floods overflow me. The Lord Jesus Christ now has become personally responsible for the sins of the world. He has taken the responsibility for our sins, and he has come before God to answer for the responsibilities that he has taken upon himself. I sink in deep mire. where there is no standing. What a horrible experience that the Lord Jesus Christ went through. You remember, do you not, in the story that John Bunyan tells of Pilgrim's Progress.
He tells about a man who comes and begins to read a book, and this book begins to tell him about a burden that is on his back, and this book begins to explain to him something of the dreadful circumstances that he is in. And he is made, this reader of the book is made to realize that he is a man that is alienated from God, and there is a burden of sin upon his back. And John Bunyan says, as he quotes the man, he says, and this burden was so great that I am sure that it surely landed me in hell. Do we realize and do we understand how the Lord is setting before our hearts here the weight of sin that the Lord Jesus Christ endured for us?
If the weight of the sins of one man were great enough to send the man that John Bunyan was writing about and perhaps it was his own testimony, if the judgment of the sins of one man is enough to send one man to a lost eternity, what must have been the weight of the sins of the whole world, meted out upon the person of the Son of God, this holy, this spotless, sinless one, this man who knew no sin. Nevertheless, this is where we find the Lord Jesus Christ, under the judgment of water, the judgment of wickedness, and not only this.
Listen to the weariness that he speaks of there in verse three. I'm weary of my crying. My throat is dried. Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. The weariness of this ordeal through which the Lord Jesus Christ has passed. You remember, we have already alluded to this week, how the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane is before the Father. And there is such an intensity in his heart and in his life as he contemplates going to the cross. He calls to the Father and says, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.
And I believe that in those words that the Lord Jesus Christ remove every question for all time and eternity as to whether or not it was possible for God Himself to provide any other means of salvation than the death of His Son. There is no other way, no other one else who could possibly redeem man from a lost eternity. The songwriter has said there was none other good enough to bear away our sins. He only could unlock the door of heaven and let us in.
And yet here He is. He has taken this up. And while He is there in that garden, and as He is sweating as it were, great drops of blood, His disciples are over some place asleep, not realizing... not aware of the awesomeness and the significance of the moment through which they were passing. The Lord of glory, the God of the universe, coming before God the Father, getting ready to answer the question for sin.
And as he goes through this experience, and he's hanging on the cross now, on the following day, I am weary of my crying. My throat is dried. My eyes fail. While I wait for my God. And in the midst of this judgment, we see those who are around him. And we see something of the responses that come from the lips of those and the hearts of those with whom he was associated. You notice in verse four there, They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head. They that would destroy me being mine enemies wrongfully are mighty.
Then I restored that which I took not away. There's three groups of people there, I think. He speaks of those that hate me without a cause. There's a story that is told about Socrates, that after Socrates had been accused and had been condemned, that his wife met him after his condemnation, and she said to him, Thou art unjustly condemned. For upon Socrates said, Would you rather that I should be justly And when we think about the condemnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, that sinners condemned our blessed Savior, surely he was unjustly condemned.
But would we rather that he had been justly condemned? Why, of course not. We certainly would not be able to stand in boast of a Savior this evening. that had been condemned because he deserved to die? We could not stand and boast this evening of a Savior who was a sinner like other men. We couldn't stand and boast of a Savior this evening who was no better than the average run-of-the-mill individuals. But we have a Savior who was hated without a cause. He could look the whole world in the face, and he could say, Which one of you convinces me of sin?
As the Lord Jesus Christ was before Pilate, he could say concerning him, I am innocent of the blood of this just man. And his wife, you remember, comes to him and says, Have thou nothing to do with this just man? And then you remember... that as they stood by the cross and after they see what is transpired there the centurion cries out truly this was the Son of God you see his enemies and those who were his accusers and those who were his crucifiers they all gave testimony to the fact that he was hated without a cause they had no cause whatsoever to live in enmity against our blessed Savior.
And so there were those who hated Him without a cause. And he says, there are more than the hairs of my head. Have you ever been hated without a cause? Have you ever had people to hate you for no reason at all? Well, have you had somebody to hate you because you deserved it? Much better to be hated without a cause than to be hated for a just reason. And not only this, he says, They that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully. Oh, what a terrible accusation. There are those who hated the Lord Jesus Christ.
There were those who would destroy him. There were those who were his enemies wrongfully. You think about this. This was the man who... as every time you read in the scriptures that he came upon a funeral procession, that he always broke it up. And this is the man that every time that he came on a scene where there was an acute need in any physical way whatsoever, the Lord Jesus Christ ministered to the needs, why it was the best social program the world has ever seen. All the needs were being met. People who were sick were getting healed. And the people that were hungry were getting fed. Why, the federal government hadn't gotten to that yet.
And so, you see, here's the Lord Jesus on the scene, and this is what he is doing. He is ministering to the needs of men and women. But there were those who would seek to destroy him. There were those who were his enemies wrongfully. You remember, do you not, in John's Gospel, chapter six, we read there of the Lord Jesus Christ, feeding the five thousand with a young man's lunch one day. And they followed him. And then he began to speak to them about his being the bread of life. And then he said to them that, except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. Then they said, it says concerning them, that many of them turned and walked no more with him.
It was a difficult saying. Men were interested in the blessings which the Savior would bring, but they didn't want him. They didn't want the blesser. And so here is the Lord Jesus Christ being hated, and there were those who were his enemies, and those who would destroy him. But you'll notice also, he says, then I restored that which I took not away. These are those that are being blessed. Isn't it a tremendous thing that even in the midst of the greatest curse, that is, when the Lord Jesus Christ was placed on the cross of Calvary, there comes forth blessing.
that even in the midst of all this rejection of the Lord Jesus, there is still blessing that is flowing forth. I restored that which I took not away. Here in the trespass offering, Psalm, he's alluding to perhaps what is recorded for us in Leviticus chapter five. There, when you read concerning the man who trespasses against his neighbor and trespasses against God, that he has a threefold responsibility. It is his responsibility when he is caught as a trespasser, when he is accused as a trespasser, when he is guilty of a trespass, his responsibility is he is to repay that which he has taken away, that which he has trespassed against his neighbor.
He is to repay it. In addition to that, He is also to offer a sacrifice and make a presentation to the priest. And then a third thing he is to do, he is to restore a fifth part, an extra twenty percent. So the man that was trespassed against actually receives more after the restoration has taken place than he had lost to begin with. I think that would be a neat program. for the government in the United States to start enacting about people who trespass against their neighbors. You know, if somebody came to your house and they stole from you and they got caught, they'd have to bring back what they took from you and give you twenty percent more than they took and then go pay their fine down at the courthouse.
Now, that's exactly what God did here. And I think it would curtail a lot of the things which are taking place in our society today. But since we're not a God-fearing nation, We're not about to make a law like that. But this was what God has done. And so you see what the Lord has done for us in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, He has restored that which He took not away, but He has not only done that, but He has paid the fifth part. So the fact of the matter is that we have more in Christ today than we lost in Adam. You see, Adam in the garden, he was an innocent man.
And so as an innocent man, he had the potentiality to sin. That was the capability. And if Adam had still been in the garden today and hadn't sinned yet, he could have still been a position where he could have sinned. And there would have always been the danger that it may happen anytime. And so when the Lord Jesus Christ came, in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, and condemned sin in the flesh, when the Lord Jesus Christ came and took up our responsibilities, and now He has given us His life, we are not just innocent people, but we are holy people.
The Lord Jesus Christ was not merely an innocent man when he was on the earth, but he was a holy man of God. That holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. My, what a difference. And so now the Lord Jesus Christ has given us his life. And we now not, we don't now have merely the life of Adam who could sin. We have the life of Jesus Christ who couldn't sin. He couldn't sin. Your Bible tells you that in him was no sin. He did no sin.
And so consequently we find that the Lord Jesus Christ is a man which is totally different from any other man that ever lived. I was interested in that story that he was reading, he was citing there in that booklet. How was the baby Jesus different from any other baby? That's one of the ways in which he was different. And so you see, we now have a greater life in Jesus Christ than we could have ever had living in the Garden of Eden. It's going to be a whole lot better in heaven.
Not pretty good down yet as far as the palms, but it's better in heaven. So you see, You've heard the three tenses of our salvation, I'm sure, but I'm going to give you a fourth one tonight. We have heard that we have been saved from the penalty of sin. That's one P. We have been saved from the power of sin, or we are being saved from the power of sin, depending on how people look at it. And then we have been saved from the presence, or we are going one day to be saved from the presence of sin. That's three.
Now there's a fourth one. One day we're going to be saved from the possibility of sin. When we get to heaven, we're going to have a nature like the Lord Jesus Christ, and there'll be no possibility of sin because we will be like Him. You think about that. God has given us His very life. We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." To me that is one of the most thrilling stories and one of the most thrilling statements that you can find in the Word of God, because we can get so sick of being like we are here.
We get sick of this. body of sin. And in the language of Romans chapter seven, who shall deliver me from this body of sin or body of death, this dead body? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. There's where our deliverance is. And so the Lord Jesus Christ has restored that which he took not away. But in doing so, He brings before us some of the shame that he had to pass through. And listen to the language in verse five. You've noticed the identification that he has. Oh, God, thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from thee.
And you look up at verse nineteen, thou hast known my reproach and my shame and my dishonor. My adversaries are all before thee. Here is the Lord Jesus, it seems, as if he is taking upon Himself, our own sins, and confessing them before God as if they were His very own. Now they never were His. We hasten to say. They never were His. They never became His. He never became a sinner. But He took upon Himself the responsibility for our sins, and God judged Him.
just as if he were personally responsible for them. The judgment was just as intense. And so he cries out, Thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from thee. And then he speaks as well as the reproach. And this is his response before man. The reproach that was heaped upon the Lord Jesus Christ. while he was here on the earth. He was reproached. He was mocked as a prophet. In Mark's Gospel Chapter Fourteen, we read how that they began to spit on him and to cover his face, and they were buffeting him with their hands.
And they said to him, Prophesy, Prophesy unto us. You call yourself a prophet? Prophesy to us. Give us some prophecy right now. And he was mocked as a king, was he not? This one who, in John's Gospel chapter one, verse forty-nine, one says, Thou art the king of Israel. Thou art the son of God. Thou art the king of Israel. Worship as the king. Later on he was mocked as the king. You remember those Roman soldiers took the Lord Jesus Christ and they stripped him. took his clothes off him.
And they put a purple robe on him. They put a crown of thorns on his head, and they gave him a reed for a staff. And in mockery they bowed before him and cried out, Hail, King of the Jews! So he was mocked as a prophet and a king, and he was mocked as a Savior on the cross of Calvary, there as he hung and as he was bleeding and dying. There were those who would hang beside him and say, If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us. The jeering and the mockery that came forth from the lips of those who were his persecutors at that time.
In his identification, he entered into this place of shame. But notice also in verse six, it speaks about a substitution. that he is speaking about. Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord, God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. And there are a couple of ways in which that is spoken of in regards to the expression for my sake. Don't let it happen because of me is one way in which it is spoken. For example, whenever Peter, after his denial of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he goes out and he's ashamed of the way, he went out and he's weeping bitterly over the fact that he has denied his Lord three times.
And no doubt it's Peter was walking through the dark alleys of the street that evening. The Lord would be conscious of the fact that this man has gone out and this man now is ashamed. He's ashamed of because of me. So the cry here has left them not be ashamed for my sake. But I think of it as well from a different perspective, that because of my sake, because of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, his people don't have to be ashamed of him in this world. We may be ashamed of ourselves, and we may be ashamed of our weakness.
And we may be ashamed of our ineffectiveness from time to time, but we never have to be ashamed of being associated with Him. To be associated with the living God, to be associated with the Savior of sinners, to be associated with the one who was God manifest in flesh, to be associated with the Lord of glory is nothing for our hearts to be ashamed of this evening. How good it is. when we can say that we know Him and we are associated with the Lord Jesus Christ. You see the loneliness that is expressed there in verse eight. I am become a stranger unto my brethren and an alien unto my mother's children.
How sorrowful it is to have to stand alone in this world. You see in the end of verse twenty it says, I looked for some to take pity and there was none, and I looked for comforters and there was none. Wouldn't you think that of all the people that the Lord had ministered to in his life, of all those persons that had been healed and been blessed by him, wouldn't you think that there would have been one who would have showed up at the cross and ministered to him or comforted him.
But he says, I looked for them and there was none. Oh, you go down through this time, verse after verse, and you see how the Lord Jesus Christ is maligned and how he is mistreated and how his shame is brought upon himself. But then you come to verse twenty-two and there is a change, an adverb change. And he says there, let their table become a snare before them, and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. That which should have been for the blessing of man, it is now going to be a curse. Let their eyes be darkened that they see not and make their loins continually to shake.
How the Lord Jesus Christ is, how men are going to have to stand before him in fear. and understand and appreciate the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord of glory and He is the one that they have so wrongfully condemned and have to stand before a holy and a righteous God and have to stand in the fear of it. There's a lot of places that I would fear to be. I would fear to be before any court in this country charged with any crime for which i was guilty i'd be afraid to appear before any court anywhere in the world imagine being in a foreign land and being brought up before a court in a language which you can't even understand too well listening to an interpreter and being charged with a crime against that state and you were guilty i would stand there with fear and trembling, perhaps not even able to open my mouth and speak a word in my defense.
But what will it be when wretched, sinful, ungodly men who have rebelled against God and refused the grace of God stand before Him at the judgment of the great white throne? Let their table become a snare. Let their eyes be darkened and make their loins continually to shake. Oh, if there's one in this room this evening who has never trusted the Lord Jesus, won't you? Won't you turn to Him? Won't you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Won't you realize that He is one that has borne the penalty that was rightfully yours, and He deserves. your adoration. He deserves your respect. He deserves your worship. Turn to him today. Receive him as your personal Savior. Be brought into the family of God through faith in his shed blood. May our hearts who know the Lord Jesus Christ have a deeper appreciation for what he himself has endured for us. How he himself has gone into that place where there was no standing.
But you see down near the end of the chapter that he came forth victorious, and he was lifted up. What a glorious truth that is. I am he that lived and was dead, but behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of heaven, the keys of death and keys of hell, and he is the one who is able in the midst of all of us circumstances, to bring us into life through His precious name. Let us pray. Father, we are grateful this evening for Thy word and how good it is that we have not been left here to stumble around in our own weakness and waywardness, that you have provided a means whereby man can have access to thee.
and it is through thy Son. We pray that you'll bless these words that we've had before us. Give us, give help in each of us that we may have better understanding and appreciation of thy Son, the Lord Jesus, and his own precious and worthy name. Amen.