Psalm 70
Let’s hear God’s word together.
This is Psalm 70. It says, to the choir master
of David for the memorial offering. Make haste, O God, to deliver
me. O Lord, make haste to help me.
Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life. Let
them be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire my hurt.
Let them turn back because of their shame who say, aha, aha,
May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those
who love your salvation say evermore, God is great. But I am poor and
needy. Hasten to me, O God. You are
my help and my deliverer. O Lord God, do not delay. This is God’s word for us, his
children. Psalm 40, or Psalm 70, if you’ll
remember back to our study of Psalm 40, have some similarities. I believe verses maybe 13 through
17 of Psalm 40 are what we find in Psalm 70. And so you get Some
mixed reviews from Bible scholars of why that is, but basically
Psalm 70 is a complete thought extracted out of Psalm 40, and
it’s God’s word for us, it’s God’s word to us, so we’re gonna
treat it as if we’ve never seen it. We’ll treat it as its own
psalm, while others may skip over it. Interestingly, another
little factoid for you is this was one of Martin Luther’s favorite
psalms, and why in the world do you think that would be? It’s
because he was always in a bad fix and he needed God to make
haste and deliver him. And so it’s a favorite of his. Well, we like to have pretty prayers.
You know what I mean by pretty prayers? We like to do our adoration. We like to follow that up with
our confession. We like to follow that up with
our thanksgiving. Did I get it right? Yep. And
then we like to follow that up with our supplication. And we
like to do it all in nice order because pretty prayers make pretty
Christians. We pray in the morning, we pray
in the evening, we pray with others, we pray for others, and
we have our prayer life all wrapped up until we get ourselves in
a big fix. And that is where messy prayers
come in. Psalm 70 is just one of those. David does not pray for anybody
else but himself. Well, he does, we’ll see that
in a moment. But he’s praying for himself and he’s praying
quickly. There’s no praise, there’s no adoration, there’s no confession,
there’s no none of the pretty prayer stuff. It’s God help and
help me now. So we wanna look at this Psalm.
Three parts and then a final little motive at the end. But
verse one gives us David’s prayer for deliverance. That’s the first
way we wanna look at this psalm. David prays for deliverance.
Verse one says, make haste, O God, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste
to help me. Skip down to verse five. He’s
still wanting some haste. I am poor and needy. Hasten to
help me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer.
O Lord, do not delay. Who in their right mind tells
God to hurry up? Well, King David does. Who prays
now prayers? People like David, people who
are in a difficult situation. Why does he pray like this? Because
in his mind and in his heart, tomorrow will be too late. He needs God to act now. We can only understand this was
a difficult situation. Now, in our study of the Psalms,
we’ve seen David in hot water, We’ve seen David getting out
of hot water, and we’ve seen David getting back into hot water.
We’ve seen Saul chase him, Saul pursue him. We’ve seen David’s
life on the line. And you can imagine that David,
King of Israel, has been, at the end of his life, in a lot
of fixes. And this is probably one of the great ones. Tomorrow
won’t be soon enough. I need it now. For tomorrow I’ll
be dead. And what good, oh God, will that
do you? And so he speaks in his prayer of deliverance for quick
help. Some of you have probably been
in a situation where spur of the moment or all of a sudden,
light turned into darkness, daytime turned into night, joy turned
into sorrow and dread. overcame you. You did not know
that in but a few moments, life, which was rosy and pretty good
at the moment, could all of a sudden turn so dark. Who prays a prayer
like this? Well, David does. Martin Luther
did. Can you imagine as we studied
the Reformation last fall? The night that Luther was at
the Diet of Worms and he asked for a night to think and pray
about whether or not he would recant, do you think he slept?
Do you think he read a word on the pages that he looked at?
Nope, he was desperate. I imagine on that night, he may
have prayed for deliverance like David, but maybe you’ve been
there. Maybe you’ve been in such a desperate situation where you
said, oh God, hurry up. For if you don’t hurry, you’re
gonna find me dead and gone. Christ prays prayers like this,
doesn’t he? Lord make haste, deliver me.
His enemy said the aha and the trickiness was placed on Christ. And so we’re in good company
when we get ourselves in a spot like this where we need to pray
for hasty and quick and immediate deliverance. But isn’t it good
to know that God can be approached like this? I mean, we say all
the time, God is not a Coke machine, he’s not Santa Claus, he’s not
the divine bellhop, and we don’t treat him like he owes us something
and we just yank his arm and pull the chain and magic happens,
there it is. But isn’t it nice to know that
when we need him, which is all the time, he’s there for us. He’s there in our ups and our
downs and our high mountains and our deep valleys. We can
pray for deliverance. We’re in good company when we
pray like this. It’s a messy prayer, but it’s
one nevertheless that is in the Bible. Second thing this passage
shows us is a prayer for enemies. Now we get ourselves in a little
hot water on Sunday nights when we talk about prayers for enemies. Look at verses two and three.
It says, let them, whoever they are, be put to shame and confusion
who seek my life. Let them be turned back. Let
them be brought to dishonor who desire my hurt. Let them turn
back because of their shame. Those who say, aha, aha. You gotta have a good voice for
that. I’m not so good at it, but you
gotta really grasp the right tone of voice to get that aha,
aha. Sound like a pirate maybe. But prayer for enemies. What
does Jesus say we should do with our enemies? We should pray for
them. We should pray for their salvation. We should pray for
good things to come to them. We should be kind to our enemies.
We’re not here in verses two and three of Psalm 70. Now, at least here, we’re not
praying that they would be wiped out of the book of life. Wasn’t
that in one of our last few verses or Psalms? Probably can’t remember
back before Easter. But one of those said, let them
be wiped out of the book of life. What is that code for saying?
Send them to hell. Go to hell, enemies. At least
this isn’t that. Or dash their babies. We haven’t
gotten to that one yet. Dash their babies against the
rocks. We’re not there. What does he
want? What does he want out of God
against his enemies? He wants their plots to fail. Whatever my enemy has up their
sleeve, God let it fail. Let them be put to shame and
to confusion who seek my life. Let them be turned back and brought
to dishonor who desire my hurt. Let them turn back because of
their shame, who say, aha, aha. Do you ever watch on the news
stupid criminals? They plan this great foil, this
great heist, and they’re going to pull it off. but they end
up shooting themselves in the foot, really, or they end up
getting hung up in a window with a Doberman pincher eating their
leg off, or something like that. That’s the kind of prayer David
is praying, all right? God, don’t give them success.
Don’t give evil success. Now, why does David have the
right to pray this? because he is the King of Israel.
And if David succeeds, Israel succeeds. If Israel succeeds,
the people of God succeed. If the people of God succeed,
the witness of God on the earth succeeds. And so it is important,
it is important, whatever is taking place for God to scatter,
to confuse, to bring to shame the enemies. What do we say in
our catechism? about Jesus Christ being our
king. Jesus is our king and he subdues us to himself by his
word. He rules over us and he defends
us against all his and all our enemies. That is one of my favorite
statements in the catechism because if I have an enemy, guess who
has an enemy? God does. And if God has an enemy because
we’re connected to God, we’re united in Christ, We have common
enemies and God is our king. Jesus is our king, defends us
against his and our enemies. This prayer has a little grace
in it. You may sometimes think these little imprecatory prayers
are just mean, they’re just nasty. They’re just something that a
good Christian would never pray. But isn’t it gracious when evil
is stopped? Because what is gonna happen
to a person who is unrepentant at the last day? They will be
judged for their evil deeds and how gracious it is for the righteous
to pray that the wicked will be stopped. What a grace that
is that we pray that they may fail and even that they may fall
in their own traps and turn. There’s a third prayer here.
It’s a prayer for the righteous. We find it in verse four. May
all who seek you be glad and rejoice and be glad in you. Now, when you come to a certain
place in life where you are praying a prayer that is for yourself,
and it is a hurry up, God, for I’m about to die, and if you
don’t hurry, I’ll be dead and gone, and it won’t be any use
for you to answer the prayer. We pray those prayers, it’s good
and appropriate to do, but very often we stare at our own navel. What do we call that, navel gazing?
We stare at our own prayer and say, woe is me, I am the only
one who’s ever suffered in this way. And what’s the logic of
that? You mean, out of all the billions
of people that have ever lived in the world, you’re the only
one who has suffered in this unique way? Well, if that’s so, you should
be put in a record book. But what’s the moral of this
prayer? Sometimes we need to think compassionately about others.
You know, we lie in our beds and we’re sick, or we look at
our checkbooks and see that it’s empty, or we look at our joblessness,
or we look at our circumstance and say, woe to me. And that’s
an appropriate thing. We don’t want to say that’s not.
But maybe God is showing us what hardship is like so that we can
look into others’ hardships and say, it must be tough. So Lord,
why this illness? Why this personal setback? It may be not only so that we
look at God and rest in him and trust in him, but so that we
can minister to others when they fall into the same difficulty.
And it’s interesting here that David prays, may all who seek
you rejoice and be glad in you. At the end of the day, does David
want deliverance? At the end of the day, will David get deliverance?
Well, he will, because we know. But what if it was God’s will
for him to suffer at the hands of these people and die? Would
God still be God? Should he still rejoice and be
glad? You know, we come to God sometimes, we come to him like
that divine bellhop, the great Santa Claus in the heavens, and
we not only believe that he will give us what we ask, but we expect
him to, and we feel entitled to it. But what if it was your
lot in life to suffer? You ever thought about that?
What if it was your lot in life to never have that particular
prayer answered, and for that particular part of your life,
if you let it, if you became embittered, to just be miserable? You would come to the conclusion
that God is not able, God is not good, he’s left me for dead,
he doesn’t love me. We left our dog last week for
two days at home. Somebody came and let him in
and out, and we got home, and he thought for sure we hated him.
He thought for sure he was left alone in this world, He didn’t
like us much for a couple of days after we got home. And that,
my friends, is sometimes how we treat God. We say, He must
not love me. or he must not be able. He’s
forsaken me, he has forgotten me. And so sometimes I think
God in his wisdom puts us in a situation so that we will look
aside from our circumstances and say, yes, I would love that
job. Yes, I would love those dollars.
Yes, I would love that relief from health or I would love a
spouse or this car or this thing, whatever it is in life. And God
says, no, you’ll never get it. because you’re gonna be satisfied
in me. And what a great grace that is.
David teaches us that here in this prayer for the righteous.
May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. How in the
world does that little sentence fit in the context, in the bookends
of make haste, hurry up, I’m about dead and gone, and if you
don’t hurry, all is gonna be lost and my prayers are of no
use. May all who seek you rejoice
and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation
say evermore, even with cancer, even with homelessness, even
with joblessness, even with heartache in the family or the children
or relationships or whatever, may those who love your salvation
say evermore, God is great. And so we pray for ourselves,
but we also pray for others. who suffer, do you ever think
about your predicament in life? Whatever it is you don’t have,
whatever it is you think you need, whatever it is, and these
could be righteous things, we’re not saying it’s bad, but have
you ever thought about what if God is making me more compassionate
to others? It’s a good thought to have.
And we pray for ourselves, but we pray for others. You know,
you’re better suited to minister to other people having been through
hardship. There’s a final statement in this Psalm. It’s in verse
five. He says, I am poor and needy. Hasten to me, O God. You are my help. You are my deliverer.
O Lord, do not delay. You might call this David’s motivation
to God on his behalf. Why should God hasten? Why should
God hurry? Why should God deliver? Why should
God scramble the enemies and make their plot fail? It’s because
I’m poor, I’m needy. He knows his predicament. How
many people do you think walk the face of this earth, even
as professing Christians, saying, I got this. I’m good. God is there. And if I need him, I’ll call
on him. I might make it to worship once, maybe twice a month. I’ll
go to the beach, I’ll do all the sports things, I’ll bump
along, I’ve got a paycheck, I’ve got this, I’ve got that. How
many people do you think in the Christian realm live as if God,
he’s there, and when I need him, I’ll call on him? It’s not so
with David. David here says, I am poor. He’s
the king of Israel. He lives in a palace. He has
thousands upon thousands at his right hand. And if he says go,
they go. If he says kill, they kill. If
he says wage war, they wage war. He has one of those rooms like
you watch Richie Rich growing up, right? Or Scrooge McDuck. They had one of those rooms with
money and he jumped in it. I mean, David didn’t need anything,
but what is his position before God? I am poor. I am needy. But you are my help. and you
are my deliverer, oh Lord do not delay. This morning we mentioned
in our confession, our affirmation of faith, that when you become
a Christian, you repent of your sins, you come to faith in Jesus,
and you endeavor to live a Christian life which includes making diligent
use of the outward and ordinary means of grace, the word, the
sacraments, prayer, fellowship, and what was that last one? Suffering.
Suffering. That’s a means of grace we don’t
like. And you can skip church. You could not be baptized. You
could not come to the Lord’s table. You could fail to pray. You could fail to fellowship
with God’s people, but suffering will always chase you down. And what does that lead us to
say? I am poor. I am needy. Hasten to me, O God,
for you are my help and my deliverer. Now, there’s an unanswered question
here. Maybe there’s a question you hadn’t thought of, but I’ll
give you the question, and it’s this. How do I make it from now to then? Some of you are a little older,
and maybe that time is shorter, but some of us are a little younger,
and sometimes we may wake up in the night, whether we’re young
or old, and we say, Lord, I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t
know if I can make it another day. help, hasten. What do we do? Well, we think of that great
cloud of witnesses that are in heaven. They’re cheering us on.
They’re calling us home. We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus,
the author and the perfecter of our faith. And as we struggle,
as we fall, as we fail, as we Suffer as we have joys and triumphs
and mountaintop experiences, the highs and the lows and in-betweens.
We press on, we keep the faith, and we keep our eyes fixed on
Jesus. Friends, there’s no other way.
It worked for King David, it worked for Christ, and it shall
work for us. Pray with me. Our Lord and God,
we thank you so much for a psalm like this that shows us very
simply that we can cry out to you. Lord, when we have these
moments, help us to run to you, to run to the cross, but keep
our minds on others as they suffer. For sure, we are not the only
ones who have. Help us to be good ministers that out of our
pain and our sorrow, out of our depths, that when you lift us
up, we will serve others. We thank you for this little
lesson. May it be huge in our lives. We pray it in Christ’s
name. God, my rescue, help me quickly,
Lord! Frustrate those who haunt me,
shame be their reward! Turn back, confuse those who
in my heart delight! Pay them back with shame, who
cheer a hobbit’s spite! Let all seeking you, with joy
in you abide, Saying, for your rescue, God be magnified! God, I am needy, O come to me,
I pray! You’re my help, my Savior, Lord
to me!