Psalm 69 is presented as a messianic psalm vividly portraying Christ's suffering at Calvary, particularly in its first twenty-one verses. These verses depict Jesus' profound distress, likening his experience to drowning in deep waters and sinking in mire, symbolizing the overwhelming weight of sin and God's wrath. The sermon emphasizes that Christ's suffering was not just physical but a spiritual ordeal endured in humanity's place, restoring what was lost through sin. It highlights Jesus' awareness of his enemies and his identification with human sinfulness and foolishness, as seen in verses like "O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from thee." The core lesson is that the cross reveals the true horror of sin and the immense cost of salvation, urging believers to appreciate the depth of Christ's sacrifice and God's tender mercies.
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The Psalm sixty-nine, the sixty-ninth Psalm. This is the sixth Psalm in the series that we're having on what is known as the imprecatory Psalms. The imprecatory Psalms are that series of Psalms wherein the curses of the psalmist are called down upon the heads of those who are the enemies of God. There are a strange set of Psalms, and this is a set of Psalms, I believe, that deal with a great subject of divine retribution. Now, if you have a Schofield reference Bible, you'll find at one spot in one of Schofield's footnotes the listing of the imprecatory Psalms.
And the sixty-ninth Psalm is not included in them. But in verses twenty-two of this sixty-nine Psalm, to the twenty-eighth verse, verses twenty-two through twenty-eight, they give us the cry of one who is calling down the curses of God upon those who have wronged him. Now, we're not going to have time tonight to get to that particular section on the curses of God. We're going to deal rather with the first section tonight. Verses one through verse twenty-one. And verses one through twenty-one deal in a special way with our Lord at Calvary.
I believe these first twenty-one verses are like, or we should be like Moses, as he approached the burning bush, and the Lord said, Moses, take your shoes off, for the place where on you stand is holy ground. The first twenty-one verses of this sixty-nine psalm take us in graphic detail to the cross on Calvary's Hill. This sixty-nine psalm is not only an imprecatory psalm, it is a messianic psalm. By messianic it means it speaks directly concerning the Messiah, the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verses from this psalm are used by Paul and they are used by our Lord when he was on the cross John chapter nineteen verse twenty nine says Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished that the scripture might be fulfilled not scriptures but just one and it had reference to the vinegar and he quotes the sixty ninth psalm and as he does He quotes that twenty-first verse. He says, I thirst. And when he had received the vinegar, the vinegar, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head.
And he gave up the ghost. So what we want to do tonight, I'm going to say a number of things that to me are very important in understanding the outline of this sixty-nine psalm. And to me it would be wrong to look at the imprecatory section of this psalm. without dealing, first of all, with the rejection of the Savior as he's so vividly portrayed in the first twenty-one verses. So what we're going to do tonight is read those first twenty-one verses, and next Lord's Day evening we'll pick up at verse twenty-two. Verse one, save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul.
I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. I am come into the deep waters where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying. My throat is dried. Mine 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 being mine enemies wrongfully are mighty. Then I restored that which I took not away. O God, thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hidden 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 have become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee. are fallen upon me. When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. I made sackcloth also my garment, and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me, and I was a song of the drunkards. But as for me my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time, O God, in the multitude of thy mercy, hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.
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. fear 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 my adversaries are all before thee reproach hath broken my heart I am full of heaviness and I look for some to have pity but there was none and for comforters but I found none They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
May the Lord bless his word. Let's just pray again. Our Father, we bow before thee, and we stand in awe as we consider what took place on the cross on Calvary's Hill. As we thus stand in awe, we ask you to graciously minister to our souls, as we would seek to multiply words upon the sacred records, give us a warm heart toward the Son of God, in a most unique way in thankfulness for what he was willing to endure in order that we might have life.
and that we might know the blessings of the Father's house forevermore. Hear us in these things and minister to our souls tonight. For Jesus' sake, amen. Students of the Psalms try and attribute the Psalms to various writers. Not every writer that you read believes that David wrote all the Psalms. Now I don't either. Moses wrote one or two. Jeremiah wrote some. And the sixty-nine Psalm they have especially a difficult time with.
If you read one of my favorite writers, for instance, Alexander McLaren, he's an excellent writer. He was an excellent preacher. But he attributes this Psalm to someone else other than David. And I mentioned this truth when we examined that great psalm, the hundred and tenth psalm, a few weeks ago. Well, it's a few months ago now. But you see, when we come to this psalm, we have the New Testament to help us. And the New Testament is the Holy Spirit's interpretation that he places upon the Old Testament.
And if we believe, as Paul writes, that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, then we can come to this psalm and we can settle who we believe to be the writer. So I want you to turn to Romans chapter eleven for a moment. Romans eleven. In Romans chapter eleven we want to read verses nine and ten. Romans eleven verses nine and ten verse nine says and David saith who does Paul attribute under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit this on to David is the writer and David saith and now he's dealing with the imprecatory section of the psalm let there a table be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a recompense unto them Let their eyes be darkened that they may not see, and bow down their back aware.
So this deals with, and David quotes, a few of the curses from the Sixty-Nine Psalm. But I want you to turn over to chapter fifteen of Romans and verse three, where we read concerning Christ. And it's interesting. He's telling us in Romans fifteen that we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and how we are to receive one another who has trusted Christ. And it says in verse three, you see, we can get to the place where we say, but I don't want to receive him.
He's not my kind. And we can make all kinds of excuses for not receiving someone else in the family of God. But he reminds us. in verse three, for even Christ pleased not himself. That's one of the most fascinating verses that are to be found in the New Testament. Who is he writing about? He's writing about the Creator of the universe. He's writing about the one who had all authority in his hands. And it says of him, He pleased not himself. Oh, what a shame that puts us to when we live to please ourselves and act to please ourselves.
And then he quotes the sixty-ninth Psalm as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. And then he adds, for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning. that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might hope. In other words, he's telling us in a sweet way that why the Old Testament was written and it was written for our admonition. Now, this Psalm, we're getting back to the Sixty-Nine Psalm. When you study this Psalm, it can be divided in three ways.
And we divide it by the pronouns. If you'll notice the first twenty-one verses of this Psalm, the pronouns are in the first person singular. I, me. You see, that's what you have. They're in the first person singular. I, me, my. But when you go to the imprecatory section, verses twenty-two to twenty-eight, there's a sudden change. We have the record of some of the most serious implications that are found in the whole of the Bible.
And the pronouns are in the third person plural. They, them, there. In other words, the enemies of God are seen here by the third person plural pronouns. And then in verses twenty-nine through thirty-six, there is yet another change. The scene shifts to that time of prosperity and peace and praise when praise is upon the lips of the redeemed people of God. Zion and the cities of Judah are the habitation of a people redeemed by the Lord.
So what you have in the first twenty-one verses, we have our Savior at Calvary. In verses twenty-two through twenty-eight, we have the retribution of God upon those who reject the Savior. So when you read a New Testament verse that deals with a subject of retribution, you could put it alongside of verses twenty-two through twenty-eight, or coupled with the love of Calvary, is also the retribution of God. upon those who believe not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And then the last section of the psalm, we move on to the day of our Lord's return, when the cities of Judah and Zion, the city of David, is going to be inhabited by a people redeemed by the Lord. And the people redeemed by the Lord are those who are seen at the cross on Calvary Field. And we see the travail of the soul of the Savior. And we see what he endured in order that he might have a people with himself. You see, the words of this Psalm are the words of David. The heartbreak of the Psalm is that of the Son of God.
Here is what the Holy Spirit calls In the book of Hebrews chapter five, strong crying and tears. Turn over to Hebrews chapter five, for it is so important. Hebrews chapter five, verse seven, where we read, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared, though he were a son.
Yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. How could the omniscient, almighty, son of God, learn obedience? I don't know. And I'll tell you something. I've never met anybody else who knows either. We take our shoes off, and we worship in the presence of the Lord. When you read a verse like this, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered, and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him.
What a verse, what a blessing. When we read these first verses that we read tonight, we behold utter revulsion. It speaks of an unspeakable horror and despair beyond words. So we're going to look at these words of our Lord used in describing that which he endured when he took our place in death. This morning at the Lord's Supper, I read that verse from Luke seven where God said to Simon, Simon, thou gave us me no kiss.
These verses before us tonight are verses that should cause us to say within our heart, Lord, I want to kiss you. You're all together lovely. What you endured in my place, we can use words, but our language fails. So let us begin with verse one. In verses one through twelve, I say that here we have our Lord's dilemma. Now if there's ever a portion of God's Word that needs to be approached with reverential awe, it is this, like the twenty-second Psalm, where we hear our Lord say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And then he goes through the horrors that he experienced there at Calvary. In verses one and two, we are given a threefold picture of our sin as it's viewed by the Savior. And if you want to know what sin is like, you have to read these first two verses. He says, Save me, O God, for the waters are coming unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. I am coming to deep waters where the floods over colonialism.
Here we have, he says, the waters are coming unto my soul. When thou hast made his soul an offering for sin, we read in Isaiah fifty-three, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. In the year nineteen twelve, a great ship slipped out of its mooring. on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, the ship was called the Unthinkable Titanic. A lot of rich people were on that boat.
A lot of rich people, the wealth of the world was on that boat, as it were, rich people. And of course it was called the Unthinkable Titanic, but going through the North Atlantic, it hit an iceberg. And when it hit an iceberg, a gaping hole was ripped in the side of the Titanic. And you know the results. There are multitudes of stories told by those who survived the Titanic and concerning those who went down in the waters. Throughout the earthly life of our Lord, he didn't have smooth sailing.
When he was born, Herod tried to kill him. When he began his public ministry, the people from his hometown tried to throw him over the brow of the hill. In his earthly ministry, when he went about doing good, there were those who picked up stones to stone him. But, beloved, when he came to Calvary, the iceberg hit him, as it were, and ripped open his side. And what did he say? We hear that cry, Save me, O God, for the waters are coming unto my soul.
It is a picture of a drowning man. You see, when we examine Calvary and what took place, it's not only that he died physically, it's what he adored spiritually at the hand of a holy God. for our sins. And what he endured spiritually is what saves you and me. For you and I don't know all of our sins. You and I can imagine all our sins. And the Holy Son of God shrank from being identified with us.
Save me, O God. for the waters are coming unto my soul. But then he says, and here's the picture of a man who's being defiled. He's not only drowning, but he's being defiled at the same time. He says, I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. If you examine, as you read the book of Nehemiah, the building of the wall of Jerusalem and the various gates, There is a gate at the southwestern angle of the city of Mount Zion called the Dung Gate above the valley of Tophus, there at the Kidman Valley.
And all the refuse of the city was taken out to Dung Gate. All the refuse of the temple and the slaying of the animals, et cetera, et cetera, went out to the dung gate. That's why it's called that. And there below is a valley of Tophat, and there was the accumulated fill of a city. And that's what our Lord likened to what took place in Calvary. The accumulated stench And still of the world was laid upon him.
Nothing worse could ever happen to a person than to fall in that. And that is what our Lord likened himself to as he's there in the cross. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. We must remember. that Christ Jesus the Lord not only died for us but he died as us that's what second Corinthians five twenty one says thou hast made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and our sins was drowning the Savior.
The floods overflowing, God's wrath that had been damned back since Adam's sin broke upon him. Can you imagine the floodwaters when the gates were opened and there at Calvary The floodgates were opened upon the Son of God, and he cries out, I'm a drowning man, drowning in the filth and the stench of our sins under the wrath of God. What is the answer that our Lord gets?
He doesn't get any. There is silence from heaven. Psalm twenty-two says, My God, my God. Why hast thou forsaken me? Why are thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring, O my God, I cry in the daytime, and thou hearest not, and in the night season am not silent, but thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel? Heaven was silent. How could God look on love on earth? And at the same time, spare his own son.
He couldn't. Romans eight thirty two says, He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. Shall he not also with him freely give us all sins? In verse four, we realize that the Savior is aware of his enemies. For he says, They that hate me without a cause. There was no cause for hatred to the Son of God. When he came, he went about doing good. He only blessed. He never cursed. No one ever came to the Savior who did not go away blessed by him.
And he says, They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head. that it would destroy me being mine enemies wrongfully are mighty and I like the next word then and what that then stands for and I'd like you to take a good look at that little phrase then I restored that which I took not away there on Calvary's cross as a son of God dies in behalf of his people He restores what he never took away. He was not responsible for man's sin.
Man decided that he could live without God. He could paddle his own canoe. And you go from the events of one day to another, and all we see is the wickedness of the human heart. Whether you look at Somalia, whether you look at Bosnia, whether you look at New York, or anywhere else. I'll tell you something. You've all heard me say this before. When I was a teenager, a young man and myself, we'd get together and study the Word of God occasionally. And we enjoyed talking with each other about the coming of the Lord.
But there's a verse that always troubled me in Matthew twenty four. I understand it now. And that little verse was, men's hearts failing them for fear for the things that are coming to pass on the earth. My, that was a strange verse to me. I thought, I'm not afraid of anything. There's nothing coming to pass that I need to get excited about. I can't say that anymore. People are afraid to work in high-rise buildings. People are afraid today to take international travel.
They don't know when the plane is going to be bombed out of the sky. The wickedness of the human heart. Our Lord says, Then I restored that, which I took not away. Adam thought that he could paddle his own canoe, and there are multitudes of people who think the same thing today. Instead of coming to the Savior, and beholding what he did at Calvary and crying out for the mercy of God. Here's a verse that gives assurance to the hearts of God's people. See, I need not fear. Something was restored at Calvary's cross.
Something that man dreadfully lost through sin is restored by divine grace on the part of the Savior and there is mercy for the children of men. And we can cry out to poor sinners, O taste and see, that the Lord is gracious, blessed is the man who trusts us in him. Now, it was at this time when our Savior endured all that is described in the first three verses that he restored that, which he took not away. So when you read John chapter nineteen, alongside of this we can put the words, It is finished.
It's finished. So when you come to verse five, verse five is a verse that has caused the commentators a lot of problems. It is the reason, verse five, is the reason that commentators do not believe that this could have reference to the Messiah. that this, and this is why they dismiss David for one of the reasons why they dismiss David as being the writer, where he says, O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from thee. Did our Lord Jesus have any sin? No. Was he ever foolish? No.
But the writers forget so easily that our Lord Jesus is taking whose place our place. Am I foolish? Oh my, don't answer that. For all you need to do also is look in the mirror. Oh, our foolishness. Oh, our sins. But tonight we sang something. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin not in part but the whole. is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. You see, how could our Lord speak of his own foolishness and sins because he identified himself in me? With our foolishness, he was made sin for us who knew no sin. But when you come to verse six, we have our Lord's desire for his own. for he says in verse six, let not them that wait on thee, O Lord, God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. We never need to be ashamed of the cross or what our Lord endured. The cross is the most horrible thing that you can ever imagine.
It's the most humiliating death there is. And that's why Paul says in First Corinthians chapter one, We preach Christ crucified. It's a thing that the Jews did not like. And it's that which was foolishness to the Gentiles, the Greeks. They thought of foolishness. And there was a stumbling block to the Jew. But Paul says it's the only thing that was saved. We preach Christ crucified. And our Lord prayed that no one would be ashamed because of him. And no one would stumble or be confounded for his sake. Why? Says, for thy sake I borne reproach. And throughout the next series of verses, our Lord goes over the reproach that he adored.
And remember what we read in Romans, verse three. We read there as it is. Even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. For thy sake I have borne reproach. And then he says, Shame hath covered my face. And the reproach that he bore was in his own family. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. How he must have longed to see his mother's children believe in him, his brothers and his sisters.
John chapter seven declares unto us they didn't believe. Can you imagine living with a son of God? What was talked about in that home? He's different. Mary could say to her other children, this was not fornication. The angel of the Lord said he's a son of God. but they didn't believe it. For thy sake I have borne reproach. It wasn't easy to be the Son of God on earth. It wasn't easy to be the virgin born Son of God. There was much reproach connected with it.
Furthermore, he says, in verse nine, For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. You remember the quote in the New Testament in the Gospel of John, it is written, The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up. When he cleansed the temple, what did they do? They went right back at selling concessions in the temple and making money over the sacrifices that they sold to people who came to the feast from afar off. Make religion easy is what? the Sadducees tried to do in relation to the Passover and the other feasts that they had in Israel.
What is the church trying to do today? Make it easy. We're trying to make it easy for people to be saved apart from them realizing the horrible nature of sin. and what it really cost. Let me ask you a question. When our Lord said to Simon in Luke seven, thou gavest me no kiss, he said that to Simon after he had told a parable of two men, the one who was forgiven just a little and the one who was forgiven a lot.
I believe that one of our biggest problems today in the church We know so little about that gracious atonement of the Savior that our kisses for the Savior are lacking. Well, Davis knew no kiss. We have made it so easy. We try to make it easy for people to be saved. Now, when it comes to salvation, it is simple, friends. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
But a person to get them to come to Christ and to believe on Christ as Lord is something else. Friday afternoon I sat with a man, a big businessman, with an open Bible. Someone from this meeting here has given him a Bible. And he pulled it out of the desk and he said, explain this to me. And this fellow has a good mind. Do you know what his problem is? He hasn't gotten lost yet. He doesn't see that he's lost.
And it's only lost people who get a Savior. And one of our biggest problems is people don't realize what their sin has done to them. And they can only know when they come to the cross, in the light of Calvary's cross, it's the only place we're ever going to learn the horrible mess of our sins. Well, we have to move on. We have to move on. As our Lord prays, when you get down to verse fourteen, we find him praying again.
He says, But as for me, my prayer is unto the O Lord, in an acceptable time. O Lord, O God, in the multitude of thy mercy, hear me in the truth of thy salvation. Then he cries out again, going over the first verses, Deliver me out of the mire. Let me not sink. Suppose that was your child saying that to you. Would you turn your back on him? God the Father did out of love for you and me. No answer.
Deliver me out of the mire. Let me not sink. And then he says, 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. Let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. You see, sin is such a real thing. It is so real that it calls forth what you have in verses twenty two to twenty eight those awful imprecations that we're going to look at next week which come upon those who receive not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ but in verses seventeen through twenty one I just want to point something out to you very quickly it's in verse sixteen really where he says, Hear me, O God, 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. I want you to notice how the Lord addresses the Father. He not only speaks of the mercies of God, he speaks of the tender mercies of God. He not only speaks of the kindness of God, but he speaks of the loving kindness of God. And then he goes on and he describes the confidence that he has in God. And then he displays the tender mercies of our God as he addresses the Lord in prayer. And I think those verses equal what he did when he was on the cross.
And he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And when he said that, he was reveling in the tender mercies of our God. That's going to flow to all God's people the result of that wondrous death at Calvary's cross. Next week in the will of the Lord, we'll take up the importation there in the Psalm. Let's pray together. O God our Father, we stand in awe at Calvary of thy great love.
of thine infinite mercy and thy tender compassion. Deliver us, O Father, from the spirit of this age that talks about what man does during Lent instead of talking about what the Savior endured when he was there in our place. Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, We ask you to take this word and bless it to each heart for Jesus' sake. Amen.