AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH February 3, 2013

A Presbyterian Church following the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord Jesus Christ without Compromise by Faith  

Continuing with the basics of the 1901 Constitution

of the Presbyterian Church of Australia  

PSALM 69

CONVERSION, AVERSION AND INVERSION

From Curse to Cure

Sermon Notes

We plan to have the oral  version available in a few days, so that
these notes may be filled out with that.

I

PRELUDE 69:1-5

David in Dire Difficulties

2

PERFORMANCE OF PRINCE AND PERSECUTORS 69:1-28

In some verses these intermingle
 

a) The Persecutors 69:4,8-12

In v. 4, we remember David as in  I Samuel 22:5-11. EVEN the city of Keilor, which David
encouraged by the Lord, delivered, would deliver him to Saul! The Lord
showed Him that this would be so, thus delivering the deliverer! This theme moves to the Messiah in due course on a far vaster canvas. Also it is reminiscent of I Samuel 24:2 where we find Saul, the King with no less than 3000 soldiers in pursuit of David!

b) The Transfer 69:4-6

Now we see the Deliverer, not just of David but of all who trust in the Lord in terms of His great Covenant in Christ's blood (Matthew 26:28, Psalm 69:31-32) supplanting the servant David. It is essential for the result noted that HE be not a cause or source of shame: it is enough that HE deliver those whose sins surround them because of imperfection of whatever kind (Psalm 69:6). The cost, great as in Psalm 22:25-32,  49:7,15, Romans 3:23-27, 5:1-11, purchases eternal life and as in Psalm 40:1-3, it is paid most willingly by the Messiah.

c) The Prince, the Blessed Messiah  69:13-21 with 6-12

His sufferings for this target are of many kinds. He could not flinch, fail or wander weakly from wisdom, for that is sin. BEHOLD the MAN! cried Pilate (John 19:5). Twice already subjected to clouting, once to a thorn crown, to mockery and trial, He by this time has been scourged as well, before being put on exhibit by a desperate Pilate who declares Him guiltless of the charge put. No  appeal by Pilate can circumvent the brutal reality of hypocritical clamour of false charges and judgment by hate, fear and self-interest. LET NOT THOSE who seek You be confounded because of Me! He prays (v. 6). It is for the Lord's own sake that He suffers reproach (v.7), shame being the normal projection upon Him, who alone can same THEM from the very same thing! This takes discipline and He gives it! Even His family are unsympathetic as His ministry moves to its climax (v.8, Mark 3:21).

His passionate zeal for what is needed to redeem His people, all believers (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6) brings Him  to this torture and vast expenditure morally, spiritually, personally, and in the very heart of deity (v. 9, John 2:19, Romans 15:2-3). It was in His desperate prayer and gaunt facing of the coming foretold sacrifice that He was arrested, far from the triumph to  come, in His humiliation (69:10), that His work is misconstrued by many (v.12, Luke 5:30, 7:34). As in v. 19, what is now very due reproach and shame doubles the burden on Him, since in bearing the sin of the repentant believers (as in Isaiah 53:6,10), He suffers discard in His experience, even from His Father (Matthew 27:46). THAT reproach breaks His heart, the very heart of sin-bearing as Saviour, that guilt be cleared and salvation be awarded freely (v. 32). Pity is unavailable at the crux of the saving crisis (v. 20), while the gall of those who gave Him gall for good, and vinegar for thirst,  as their KING (John 18:36-37) fits like black clouds in a thunderous  sky.

3  REWARDS WITH ALL REALISM  69:22-36

Pitiless of their own pity, those then as now (cf. John 3:19, 36) reject Him, who  alone can and did procure peace for thoe who receive Him as He is (cf. Isaiah 9:6-7, 52:7, 40:10), find their reward; and it is in terms of reality! (69:23-29).  With Him dismissed  by their unbelief, hostility, indifference or other soul cancers, there remains only the passion of sin which consumes them, as a child fairy floss. Thus,  when they reject the passion for salvation as arranged and predicted for so long, in so much detail, now fulfilled to the last particle, nothing contestable by evidence for thousands of years, they have affinity for darkness and it becomes their grave emplacement (John 3:19). What it cost measures what they had to pay; and refusing free salvation, they find but disgrace (Titus 2-3, Matthew 23:37).

As to the Messiah, OUR deliverance (who repent, believe and receive Him and the words of His lips, as in John 5:24, 12:48-50) is the CRUX of HIS REWARD (Hebrews 12:1-2, 6:19, I Peter 3:18, Isaiah 53:10-11). stretching even to eternity (vv. 32-33, Psalm 22:30, 49:7-15, I John 5:11-12, John 5:24).

This is what one might call an intrinsic reward because it meets the underlying love in the heart of God from whom He has come,  being God the sent (Isaiah 48:16), straight from the joy of the Trinity. HIS joy comes because He is triumphant in meeting this underlying divine love, and the reward is the deliverance, the purchase from ruin and desolation of those to whom His love has reached, securing for them eternal  salvation. HIS deliverance was certain from eternity (Revelation 13:8, Acts 2:24).

From all this we then garner a lesson.

The travesty of truth becomes the ruin of unrealism,

And for what is truth so travestied,  so mistreated ?

Is it a matter of deliverance from  an ogre ?

Secession from a tyrant ?

Rescue from the heartless ? is THIS the estimate of the heart of God, the Saviour!

What is being sought ? Is it extradition from  extinction?
is it to avoid this that unbelief in Him taunts or tires ?

The long attested reality in God is  full of love, truth, peace and mercy.

The actuality in God is revealed in action,

not invasion, but incarnation,

not forces but bearing the frenzy of forces unclean,

and exhibiting His own nature in divine contrast.

Telling God to get lost is an indirect  form of self-judgment -

for such a person IS lost,

severing his/her own  identity

dismissing its own foundation and

finding the sky does not support one,

by inversion!

It is the ground that is needed, in the Rock which is Christ only (I Cor. 10, Psalm 62).

The Twin Towers of sin and self-life lie smouldering, their very ground  lost, and

this is an image of the baseless, formless, of the thankless.

Alas, whether for one or many, this nation or that ,
this serves as an image of what is smitten,
when rebellion becomes the core and unrealism the choir.

As for those who believe in the Lord of life and believe His words
(John  12:48-50, 5:24, Matthew 20:28), it is they who receive His payment.

Eternal life never smoulders and sin brings no shame for this salvation;

it is free for us, though it was not for Him.

Vast is the message of Psalm 69, and praise God,

it was all in its heart, foretold in the Psalms and the prophets.