Take your Bibles, if you will, and turn to Psalm 69. The 69th Psalm. The theme of this Psalm is pretty clearly the dishonored king. The dishonored king. It’s a Psalm of David. Again, we have a rather long psalm. I will take the time to read through it entirely, beginning with verse one.
“Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me. I’m weary with my crying out. My throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause. Mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. What I did not steal must I now restore. O God, you know my folly. The wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts. Let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel. For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons. For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. I am the talk of those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me.
But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me in your saving faithfulness. Deliver me from sinking in the mire. Let me be delivered from my enemies and from deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good. According to your abundant mercy, turn to me. Hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Make haste to answer me. Draw near to my soul. Redeem me. Ransom me because of my enemies. You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor. My foes are all known to you. Reproaches have broken my heart so that I’m in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none. And for comforters, and I found none. They gave me poison for food. And for my thirst, they gave me sour wine to drink.
Let their own table before them become a snare. And when they are at peace, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. May their camp be a desolation. Let no one dwell in their tents, for they persecute him whom you have struck down, and they recount the pain of those who you have wounded. Add to them punishment upon punishment. May they have no acquittal from you. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living. Let them not be enrolled among the righteous. I am afflicted and in pain. Let your salvation, O God, set me on high.
I will praise the name of God with a song. I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs. When the humble see it, they will be glad. You who seek God, let your hearts revive. For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners. Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them, for God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and people shall dwell there and possess it. The offspring of his servants shall inherit it, and those who love his name shall dwell in it.”
And then we have the postscript to the choirmaster. Let’s bow for prayer.
Our Father, we are grateful again for your Word. And as each Lord’s Day, we come together to hear from you. What a treasure this is to have your Word to us, written so many centuries ago and yet so relevant and so right for us. We pray that you’ll encourage and strengthen the hearts of your people today through your Word. We pray in Jesus’ name.
We do not have in this psalm, in the superscript, any statement of the historical setting of what is going on. David is clearly under persecution. He’s under persecution, he says, for his zeal for the God and for his temple. Verse 7: “It is for your sake that I have borne reproach.” Verse 9: “Zeal for your house has consumed me. The reproaches that were intended for you became mine, and the whips that were intended for you became mine.” So he’s zealous for God, and somehow, though we don’t know the exact setting, he is being persecuted specifically because of his faithfulness and his zeal for God. There are those on the outside who don’t share that zeal for God and they’re mocking him for it.
And so this is a lament psalm, and it has the typical components of a lament that we’ve come to see and expect. This is rather straightforward. Verse one, we have the direct address to God, and then the introductory plea or petition: “Lord, save me, O God.” And then he begins the lament, and then we have the petition, and then we have the expression of praise at the end, and the expression of confidence.
The King’s Lament
So let’s work our way through. We have the typical beginning of a lament psalm: “Save me, O God.” And then verses 1b through verse 5, we have the rest of his lament. And he describes the situation for us. And it’s the common complaints that we find in the lament psalms.
Verses 1 and 2, he’s at the point of death. “Waters have come up to my neck.” This is poetic imagery, but he’s at the end of it. The waters have come up to my neck. So it’s a metaphor of imminent death. Verse two: “The flood sweeps over me.” So he’s helpless. He’s overwhelmed, and he has no hope. Verse three, he cries out, but God doesn’t answer. Another common component of the Lament Psalms. “I’m weary with my crying, my throat is parched, so the only one who can help me is God. I cry to him, and he’s silent.”
Verse 4. Again, a common theme in the laments: “My enemies are too numerous for me, they’re too great for me, I can’t handle them.” Verse four: “More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause. Mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies.” They attack him with lies; evidently they’re undermining the king with lies, false rumors of various kinds that are being repeated. He feels that he’s losing ground.
And then verses 4 and 5, we have some expression of the injustice of it all. At the end of verse 4: “What I did not steal must I now restore.” So it’s a height of injustice. I’m made to make something right that I didn’t make wrong; make up for something that I didn’t do. Verse 5: “Oh God, you know my folly. The wrongs that I have done are not hidden from you.” And the sense of this confession here in verse 5 is not so much that he is being punished here for his sin as it is to say, “You know my faults. But this persecution that I am receiving is not for that.” We know that because, in verse 4, he tells us, “They hate me without a cause.” And he tells us in verse 9 that it is precisely for his zeal for God and his house that has brought this persecution. So he confesses his sin: “Lord, you know I have sinned. I’m not perfect. But this, this that I’m experiencing now is an injustice.” And so he’s overwhelmed. He’s worn out under the persecution, and worse probably of all of that is that through it all, it seems that God is silent.
Well, verses one to five then, he describes the situation. Beginning with verse 7, he explains the reasons for his hatred and opposition that has come to him. Verse 7: “It is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face.” Specifically, they oppose his zeal for the temple. Verse 9: “For zeal for your house has consumed me.” So presumably, these are people who are making light of or even opposing the reforms that David is introducing in temple worship.
Now, the temple is—it’s hard for us to appreciate it. We, I think, too often tend to equate the Old Testament temple with the New Testament church, and there are some analogies to be done with that, but when we go to church, we don’t go to the temple. The temple is something different. In the Old Testament, the temple is the place of residence for God himself. Inside the temple, you remember there are three parts of the tabernacle, and later the temple. There’s the outer court. Inside, there’s the holy place. And then beyond the curtain, there’s the most holy place, the smaller of the two rooms inside. In that most holy place, there’s the Ark of the Covenant. That Ark of the Covenant is said to be God’s footstool. So this is God’s throne room. This is where he resides. It’s both a palace, the residence of God, and a temple where we go to worship God. This is a holy place.
And this then is something of God’s beachhead of his rule in the earth. Inside that box, that Ark of the Covenant, inside the Most Holy Place, inside that box was the tablets of stone that God had engraved, giving his law to his people. Now many of the nations around Israel had their own holy places. They had their own holy temples and they had their holy place on the inside, and on the inside what they would have would be an idol—an idol to their god. In Israel’s holy place, there’s a copy of God’s law in God’s throne, if you will. The footstool of his throne. This is God’s beachhead in his rule in the earth. He has come to rule by his law to make his will done on earth as it is in heaven. And that’s the focus then of David’s zeal. He sees what this temple is all about. He sees it as a place of God’s residence, the holy place that it is, the center from which God rules, and so he’s zealous for it.
But he’s mocked for that zeal. Verses 10 through 12, his very practice of piety is mocked. Verse 10: “When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.” So you get a picture here of David mourning over the sins of his people. And for that, he’s mocked and made fun of. He takes that sin stuff pretty seriously, doesn’t he? And he’s mocked for his acts of piety. Verse 11: “When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. I am the talk of those who sit in the gate. The drunkards make songs about me.” So from the drunks to the elders of the city, all of them mock him and make jokes about him, make fun of him, because he’s this pious king. Verse 8, even his own family is ashamed of him: “I’ve become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons.” Everyone, it seems, is rejecting him.
All of that then, by the way, explains the petition that we have in verse 6: “Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts.” That is, if these people succeed against me and I lose, and if the mocking of me for your sake becomes prominent, then those who hope in you and those who trust in you will likewise be dishonored, and they will become ashamed, and they may even question the validity of their own faith. Lord, don’t let them lose hope because of me. Don’t let this thing succeed against me. It’ll have an effect on your people.
The King’s Petitions
Well, that’s his lament, and then we get to verses 13 and all the way through verse 29, where we have his extended petitions. Verse 13: “As for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord, at an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me in your saving faithfulness.” So out of confidence in God’s—there’s that word again—God’s steadfast love, out of confidence in God’s steadfast love, he’s emboldened to ask God for help. Lord, you’ve promised to be faithful. You’ve promised to love me forever. You’ve made a promise to me. Keep that promise.
And then in verses 14 and 15, he prays for deliverance. Verse 14: “Deliver me from sinking in the mire. Let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me.”
Verses 19 and following then, he prays for judgment now on his enemies, for justice to be served against them. Verses 21 and 22 are kind of a call for a kind of poetic justice, a get-what-they-themselves-have-dished-out kind of justice. Verse 21: “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. Let their own table before them become a snare, and when they are at peace, let it become a trap.” So all that has happened to me that they have brought, let that happen to them.
Interestingly enough, Paul the apostle quotes these verses exactly in Romans chapter 11. You remember the setting in Romans chapter 9 through 11; the big question is, what’s happened to Israel? God made these great promises to Israel and now they’re falling away and they are not experiencing the blessings that were promised. Paul has to explain it’s because they’ve rejected the one who was sent to save. And just as David in Psalm 69 prays for judgment on those who reject God’s king, so also in Romans chapter 11, Paul cites David’s prayer of imprecation against the Israel of his own day and says these who have rejected their king—this is Romans chapter 11 verses 9 and 10—because of their rejection of Christ, Paul says, David says, “Let their table become a snare.”
So Paul prays a prayer of judgment upon Israel of his own day for their rejection of God’s king. That, by the way, is a prayer that was tragically, tragically answered in AD 70 in the destruction of Jerusalem. Something like a million, up to a million Jews, perhaps more, were slaughtered. Massive starvation, the ones who survived carried off into slavery. Horrible, the most intense suffering that the world has seen. A few decades later, AD 135, we have the Bar Kokhba Rebellion; we have another half million of the Jews who were slaughtered. And I suspect the 20th century has seen answer to it as well. Six million Jews slaughtered under Hitler. David prays, “Those who’ve rejected your king, let their table become a snare.” Paul prays the same.
Verse 23: “Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually.” So here he’s kind of mixing his metaphors. It’s a hunting scene, and it’s also a battle scene. So they’re out there to do battle, looking for the enemy, and just like they would look for prey when they’re hunting, and suddenly they’re blind. They can’t see. And then panic sets in, and they tremble, and they’re afraid. Again, it’s a prayer for justice. Let them come after me, and in the middle of it, stop.
Verses 24 and following continue. Verse 24: “Pour out your indignation on them. Let your burning anger overtake them.” Verse 27: “Add to them punishment upon punishment. May they have no acquittal from you.” And then verse 29, we have his concluding petition: “But I am afflicted in pain. Let your salvation, O God, set me on high.” Save your king.
You’ll notice how this psalm so far now has been framed. At the very outset, we have the petition. Verse 1: “Save me, O God.” And now at the end of verse 29: “Let your salvation, O God, set me on high.” So these are intended to be brackets to frame this whole section of the psalm. The theme of it all so far and throughout this lament and throughout his petitions is: “Lord, save your king.” So, verses 1 to 29, we have the king’s prayer in light of his suffering. Lord, save your king. It’s lament and it’s petition.
The King’s Praise
We come to verses 30 through 36, and David concludes the psalm with praise, or maybe we should say anticipated praise. You remember how that is typical of the lament psalms when we come to the end of the psalm? He has complained of his situation, he’s called out to God for help, made his petitions, and he comes to the end and he has this expression of confidence that God will answer his prayer, and so he anticipates this time of giving praise to God for answering the prayer and coming to his help.
Well, that’s what we have in verses 30 to 36 here. Verse 30, we have the king’s praise. That is, when all of this happens, when God delivers me and saves me, as we’ve asked, “I will praise the name of God with a song. I will magnify him with thanksgiving.” So he’s confident that God will intervene and give the deliverance that he’s asked for, so confident that he’s planning already the praise that he will give. Verse 32, those who are caught up in the affliction will rejoice also: “When the humble see it, they will be glad. You who seek God, let your hearts revive.” And then verse 34, all creation will join in as a matter of fact. “Heaven and earth will praise him.” That is, God’s deliverance of his king will have worldwide effects. I will rejoice, God’s people rejoice, and all of heaven and earth will praise him for what he has done.
And then we come to the postscript, to the choirmaster. He hands this off to the director of music: “Have the congregation sing this song.” And so we ask now again what we’ve asked many times going through the Psalms: how do we sing this? How do we sing this psalm as Christians? Who’s David talking about in this psalm? What’s his focus? Is he talking about his own experience only, or does he stand as somehow representative of something more than that?
And as we’ve seen so often in the psalms, David functions as a prototype—an example, a model on two different levels. On one level, he’s talking to us, and he’s talking about us. So many of David’s psalms remind us that he is one of us, and here he’s suffering like one of us. And in this sense, David’s psalm reminds us to adjust our expectations accordingly. David suffered for God’s sake. He suffered because of his zeal and because of his faithfulness. David presumably could have escaped all of this and avoided all of this persecution if only he would compromise. If he’d have let up on his zeal for God and not been quite so zealous to show his love for God, presumably all of this could have been avoided. But for David, that’s an impossibility. He says, “My zeal for God’s house has consumed me.” He has this picture of David with a heart that is just swelling to the point of explosion with his zeal for God. I can’t stop this. I can’t compromise.
And so if compromise is impossible, then persecution is inevitable. And it comes. And yet David never wavered. He resolved to remain faithful. He doesn’t back down, whatever the cost. He prays to God for deliverance. He prays with confidence and anticipating praise. But he remains faithful. And again, David then is a model of faithfulness under persecution.
Increasingly, David’s Psalms, in which we find him as a model of faithfulness under persecution—persecution for righteousness’ sake in particular—increasingly, we find these Psalms as a model for us in our own situation. Our culture—you’re hearing me say this more and more all the time—our culture is increasingly in revolt against God. All of the—what I call the control centers of our culture—are driven by an ungodly agenda: government, education, media, more and more even athletics. All of the control centers are driven by just ungodly agendas and we’re moving fast toward a totalitarian kind of regime in our own culture and society in which all of these sinful ideals will be more and more imposed on us. To take the imagery of Revelation 13 and following, we’ll be required and pressured to take the mark of the beast. It doesn’t take a prophet to see that increasing pressure is going to be brought to bear on the church.
David was resolved to remain faithful to God under all costs. And we have to learn from David how to respond to that same kind of pressure as it comes to us. So far in our society, abject persecution of Christians has not been allowed. Well, there are some exceptions. Talk to some who have been put in jail. Talk to an 89-year-old grandmother who was praying outside of an abortion clinic who got two years in prison. There’s some of it. But so far, we have not seen the extreme kinds of persecution against Christians. But many, many a Christian has said with David, verse 7: “It is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face.” Many Christians had to say that in the workplace. Many Christians had to say that in reference to his own family. Verse 8, many Christians had to say, “I’ve become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons.” Many of them have said, verse 10: “When I’ve wept and humbled my soul with fasting, that became my reproach.” People mock my piety. Verses 11 and 12: “I became a byword to them. I’m the talk of those who sit at the gate, the drunks and on up to the whole society.” They make fun of me because of my piety.
This has been the experience of countless Christians. And because of this, well, they say with David, verse nine: “Zeal for Christ has consumed me. I can’t stop, I can’t stop. My love for Christ, it just swells my heart.” I can no more give up my faithfulness to Christ than I can fly. And so persecution becomes inevitable. How many Christians have been like David in Psalm 69, and like David, they just double down? This may cost me, but I will follow Christ. And at some point in it all, we find ourselves praying, like David, we find ourselves praying for justice. Verse 24: “Pour out your indignation on them and bring your anger, your burning anger, let your burning anger overtake them.” Or we might say in New Testament language: “Lord, how long before you avenge our blood? How long before you sanctify your name in this rotten world? How long before you bring your kingdom to its consummate glory?” And so we pray for justice like David did, at the same time even while bearing the reproach of the cross.
As Paul calls it, we refresh our souls in the anticipation of the final vindication that will come. And like David, we pray, verse 30: “I will praise the name of God with a song.” With a gospel-informed hope, we say with David: “I will praise the name of God with a song. I will magnify him with thanksgiving.” Verse 35: “For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and people shall dwell there and possess it. The offspring of his servants shall inherit it, and those who love his name shall dwell in it.” That is, there will be a day of vindication that comes. And I’m fully prepared. I’ve got my tongue tuned, and I’ll be singing the praise then.
And so David on one level speaks to us. He speaks about us. He speaks to us. He’s a model for us in suffering and in persecution in particular. But to understand this Psalm and to sing it fully, as we’ve seen also, David functions on two levels. He’s not just a model or a prototype of the church suffering, but he also typifies the king himself, his greater son, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, who will come. And we’ve seen in the Psalms that we have prophecies of the coming Messiah—verbal prophecies, predictions of that Messiah who will come. But we also have found in the Psalms that David sets a pattern, and in his life, and in his experience, and even in his words, he has a pattern—it’s a template—that somehow reappears then in Jesus. And we come to the New Testament, we find over and again that he appeals back to the Psalms, pointing them, saying, “That was Jesus. That was him.” And in fact, the New Testament writers point us to do that over and again, so often.
And you’ll have, like I say, verbal prophecies like Psalm 2, Psalm 110, where the king is prophesied: he’ll come and sit at the right hand of the Father, and all of that. But we have these patterns that are set, and we find it over and again that they point us back to Jesus in this kind of a typified way. With the exception of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” with all of its description of the cross and the crucifixion centuries ahead of time—with the exception of Psalm 22, the New Testament writers cite Psalm 69 more than any other psalm. And consistently, they point and say that these words spoken by David were spoken of Jesus.
Now I was told this week by someone that it has been very helpful when I take the time in these messages on the Psalms to go to the New Testament then and show where those New Testament writers cite David or one of the psalmists and apply it then to Jesus. So that is helpful. I’m glad that is. I don’t have the time this morning to do that because there are so many of them. Let me just run through a list of some of these for you and jog your memory. I’ll assume that you are partly familiar, at least, with some of these passages. You can jot them down, if you like, as I go along.
In John 15, verses 18 through 25, we have a passage where Jesus warns his disciples about coming opposition. He says, “If they hate me, they’re going to hate you too. They treated me unjustly, hated me [Psalm 69, verse 4] without a cause, and they’re going to hate you as well.” And then we read that what Jesus says—this is in John 15—he concludes that passage with the words of Psalm 69:4: “The word that is written in their law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.'” Now notice he says the word from the Psalms must be fulfilled. Fulfilled, as in a prediction fulfilled? It’s not a verbal prediction, but it was a pattern that was set that was prospective of Jesus. And Jesus now looks back to say, “David’s experience set the template that now I am fulfilling. It set a prospect, speaking of me, that now I bring to pass.” So David’s lamenting then over his suffering for God’s sake was fulfilled in Jesus’ suffering righteously as well.
Another one, John chapter 2. In John chapter 2 we have the fascinating incident of Jesus cleansing the temple. A picture of Jesus that is not likely to come to your mind first when you’re asked what Jesus was like. You remember Jesus takes his whip into his hand, he goes to the temple, and he’s just enraged with how this temple service has been so abused for personal profit, and he’s so angered by it, he takes a whip and he goes in and drives men out of the temple. And John records for us, John chapter two, verse 17: “His disciples remembered that it was written [Psalm 69 and verse 9], ‘Zeal for your house will consume [me].'” So David’s zeal for God, his love for God, his zeal to be faithful to God, all of it prefigures and foreshadows the zeal of Christ. And they hated David without a cause, and they hate Jesus without a cause. But again, David’s experience is seen as foreshadowing that of Jesus.
In Acts chapter 1, we have an interesting citation of Psalm 69. There, Peter tells us—Acts 1:16 and 20 as well—he cites Psalm 69:25. Those who hated David and betrayed him, all of that is prospective of Judas and his betrayal of Jesus. In Romans 15, verses 2 and 3, I’ve already cited another time when Paul cites Psalm 69 in Romans—that’s Romans 11—but in Romans 15, verses 2 and 3, he cites Psalm 69 also. Paul writes: “For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written [Psalm 69:9], ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.'”
Another one: Jesus on the cross is thirsty. He said so, and they gave him sour wine. This was, John tells us, to fulfill—this is John 19 verses 28 and 29—this was to fulfill Psalm 69 and verse 21: “For my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.” So what for David was a metaphor of mistreatment now becomes a literal fulfillment in the experience of Jesus. In Psalm 69 and verse eight, David is rejected by his own family: “I’ve become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons.” John chapter seven, we have that incident that reflects this passage of Jesus’ own brothers taunting him because they did not believe on him. Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 7 tells us, just stating it broadly, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears.” Psalm 69 fills that in for us with the experience of Jesus. Father David. King David, dishonored, foreshadows the Lord Jesus Christ dishonored as well.
I think we should take that a bit further. As I’ve just highlighted then, Jesus himself and the New Testament writers tell us specifically that verses 7 and following refer to Jesus. Verse 7 of Psalm 69—Jesus and the New Testament writers tell us specifically that that refers to Jesus. If that is the case, then we have to hear the voice of Jesus in verse 6 as well as he approaches his suffering: “Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts. Let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel.” That is to say, as he goes to his suffering, Jesus is, as it were—in fact, is—saying, “Lord, don’t let your people be disappointed with all of this. Don’t let them be shamed and dishonored by what I must suffer.” And in answer to that prayer, we see the vital importance of Jesus’ resurrection. He’s vindicated from his suffering, God’s announcement to the world that he has accepted the sacrifice of his Son and that he has God’s own approval. So far from being our disappointment, his suffering, his cross is our boast and it’s our glory. Paul echoes this in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. What a foolish kind of people we’d be if Jesus is not raised from the dead. We follow a crucified Savior; what good is that? But if God raised him from the dead, vindicated him, vindicated his suffering, then this becomes our moment of glory.
Psalm 69 speaks of Jesus then. Commentators often point out that there are two exceptions in Psalm 69 which cannot speak of Jesus. Psalm 69 is prospective of Jesus, but two exceptions. One, and that’s in verse 5, David confesses that he was not without guilt, but Jesus, of course, was sinless. The Lord Jesus could never say, verse 5: “Oh God, you know my folly, the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.” So we’re told that this then is an exception from Psalm 69. Verse 5 could not speak of Jesus. Well, in that sense, that’s true enough. And yet the whole goal, the whole goal of Jesus’ incarnation was to assume the place of the sinner. He was our representative. He was our substitute. And the whole meaning of the cross is summed up in those words: “Lord, make their sins mine.” And Jesus went to the cross, bearing the sin of his people, confessing, as it were—or as Paul would say—he was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. We’re told then that that is one exception; Jesus could not have confessed his sin. Yes, that’s true. But I think we should see it in the larger perspective that it does foreshadow Jesus as the substitute for sinners coming.
Another exception that’s pointed out for us has to do with verses 24 and following, when David calls for judgment on his enemies. Verse 24: “Pour out your indignation upon them. Let your burning anger overtake them.” That could not be Jesus, because on the cross, Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of his enemies. Again, that’s true enough, but the indignation of God called against sinners that David prayed for is precisely what our Lord Jesus took when he went to the cross. Again, this is the whole reason for the cross. It was no accident at all. It was, in fact, tantamount to Jesus going to the cross and praying the words of verse 24: “Father, pour out your indignation on me.” The whole meaning of the cross is that he went there in the sinner’s place to bear the wrath of God against their sin.
So the Lord Jesus did not call for judgment to fall on his enemies; he called for it to fall on himself. And yet, and yet, there’s coming a day when the Lord Jesus will himself call for that judgment to come upon his enemies, and in fact, he himself will lead it. The words of verses 22 and following could well be the words of Jesus. There David is calling for God’s burning anger to show itself against his enemies. Yes, the Lord Jesus has borne that burning anger himself in his suffering on the cross. But on that day, he will bring that burning anger to bear against his enemies himself. And in the ominous words of Revelation chapter 6, the world will see the wrath of the Lamb.
Because, verse 26, “they persecute him whom you have struck down.” This one who is innocent in his suffering, this one who is faithful, this one whom the world has mocked because of his faithfulness—the tables will be turned and he will be their judge. In fact, when that day of vengeance comes and rebels are put in their place at last, verse 32, “the humble will see it and they will be glad.” Verse 33, his people will find that “the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.” In that day, it’ll be made right. In that day, verse 34, “heaven and earth will praise him, and the seas and everything that moves in them.” Verse 35: “For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and people shall dwell there and possess it. The offspring of his servants shall inherit it, and those who love his name shall dwell in it.”
God will vindicate his king. He will vindicate him before the whole world. And in that day all of his people will share in the joy. That’s the prospect we find so often in the Psalter. It is here we have one suffering for his faithfulness. But God has made a promise he’ll vindicate his king and his people will rejoice with him. Amen.