From Deliverance To Worship

Our text for the afternoon preaching is Psalm number 70. So if you turn to that in your scriptures, Psalm 70, when you have that, please stand with me. 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 delight in 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, do not delay. God bless the reading. And now the proclamation of his word.

Please be seated. Now let's pray. Heavenly Father, again, we have assembled in the name of Jesus Christ to look to the word that he has given us, he, the very word of God, the word that became flesh. And we pray, Father, this living and active word this afternoon, as it has this morning, as it does throughout our lives, would have its way with us, that would convict us of sin, remind us of the redemption that we have and the forgiveness because of Jesus Christ.

Then in all things, Lord, as we look again to your word, proclaim it to the hearers here in this place, that you, Father, would be pleased by your spirit to use it to our good, to grow us evermore to be like Jesus Christ and to be with us this day as we continue in worship.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You know, we do not know quite what the situation was that David was dealing with where he so intensely called God to come to him now. It's like, don't delay.

Make haste, Lord. Make haste. Come and help me.

Make haste, Father, to deliver me. Now it being David who wrote this psalm, it could have been Absalom's rebellion. It could have been any number of enemies against him. We don't know exactly what it was.

We don't know how long he tried his own ways to get out of the dilemma he was in. We don't know if it was his fault or if it was simply wickedness coming upon him. We have no idea what it was, but we do know that this was a psalm of David, and it teaches us much about the deliverance that we call for from God.

In our lives as Christians, those who believe in Jesus Christ, we run into these dilemmas, sometimes of our own doing, sometimes are foisted upon us. And too often before we call God to make haste, we've made haste to do things our own way.

And so the psalm reminds us that the first call is to God, and to immediately go to God and say, God, immediately come to me. God, give me your deliverance. God, give me your help by your Spirit. I come now, as it says in the book of Hebrews, to the throne of grace, there to find help, that help promised by God in my time of need, which I now have.

So the psalmist calls us to call God confidently, to make haste to come to us, whatever our situation is, be it one of our own doing, be it one because just the world around us. And I would tell you from this psalm that we need to make haste ourselves in calling God to make haste because too often in my own life, and I would imagine in yours as well, what I make haste to do is figure things out myself.

I look at the situation, I say, okay, I can make a plan. I've seen this before. I know someone else who's seen this. I can call a brother or sister, find somebody who's gone through what I'm going through, get some advice, make a plan, and I hasten to do it.

Sometimes it'll work, and sometimes the worst thing that could happen is it will work. What we should do is make haste to bend our knees and make haste to call upon God to make haste to us. The psalm teaches us that, and we'll go through it fairly quickly, but also teaches us one more thing that I want us to really pay attention to as we go through this.

What is the reason for God's deliverance of us in this life? You've been delivered from the powers of darkness by your faith in Jesus Christ. He has brought you out of darkness and into light. That deliverance is accomplished.

So I'm talking about the things that occur in this life, those troubles, those problems, those dilemmas that we face when we finally, too often without haste, but when we finally go to God and call upon Him.

What is the purpose for His deliverance? Well, He does all things for His own glory, and in the psalm we'll learn and we'll see when we get to verse 4, which it won't take too long, that what should happen after we've been delivered from whatever it is we call upon God to help us with, to deliver us from, is worship.

And we'll see that in verse 4, that this deliverance goes to a proclamation to the church, a proclamation to the assembly, so that you and I and all who can hear the testimony of that deliverance can also worship God and praise Him and be confident that we ourselves will be delivered when we face things as well.

So Psalm 70 takes us from deliverance to worship. The first thing I want to go through, and we'll go through it again fairly quickly, it's just the heading there. The heading is part of Scripture, it says, to the choir master, so something to be sung.

It's a psalm that became part of worship in some way, of David, and we believe this one was written by David, Israel's poet and greatest warrior, and then it says, for the memorial.

Offering.

And here we're going to pause for just a moment and talk about this memorial offering, because it has something to do with the psalm. Memorial offering makes it sound like a formal part of the temple service, because if you read in Leviticus, there are memorial offerings that are given in a formal sense to God.

In our case here, it may allude to that, but memorial offering is probably not the best translation. There's only two psalms that have this in the heading, and it's here, Psalm 70, and also in Psalm 38, to the choir master, say both of them, of David, both 38 and 70 say, and then for the memorial offering.

Without going through a long lecture of how we get there, what this probably means more than memorial offering and that formal thing, though it alludes to that, is something more like, Lord, this is a remembrance that you may or might save me.

This is a remembrance, a memorial, if you will, a remembrance, Lord, that you might save me, a remembrance for me, to remember that you do indeed save, and it's an offering up to you that you would save me, this memorial kind of offering.

How does that work, then, that it's an offering, that it satisfies that formal sense of a memorial.

Offering?

Well, if what David is saying is this is for a remembrance that the Lord might save me, then it's a precursor, a forward pinging of what we have in the book of Hebrews. Through Jesus, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise.

Our praise is a sacrifice. Our prayers are sacrifices. Our gathering together all day here to worship God, to hear His word, to be enlightened by His word, by the proclamation of His word, by the communion of the saints, all those things.

It's a sacrifice of praise. The language in Hebrews makes it sound in that formal sense. They were doing something that goes up to God, as Conley was saying this morning, as an offering, as a sweet savor to Him.

Through Jesus, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. That's the sense I take in Psalm 70, that it is a memorial offering in one sense, and it's also a remembrance that I should remember that God delivers, and it's a plea to God to remember me and deliver me.

So in verse one, make haste, O God, that's Elohim, O God, to deliver me, to snatch me out of the dilemma I am in, to snatch me away from the enemies who are coming upon me. Again, we don't know what David was dealing with, but they seemed to want to do him great harm even unto death.

Now, most of us, I would say, God willing, none of us, have enemies like David had who would like to kill him. I remember Abbas Salaam, his own son, wanted to kill his father so he could take the kingdom.

And just being king, he would have enemies. He would have those who would be jealous of him, those who would want revenge against him for different things that he had done in God's name, and yet that they took umbrage against.

Just make haste twice, make haste, O God, make haste, O Lord, come to me and help me, deliver me, snatch me out of this mess, snatch me out of this problem, snatch me away from these enemies. O Lord, O Yahweh, make haste to help me, just give me what I cannot on my own do.

Give me the resources that I do not have within myself. You by your Spirit, by your power, stretch your arm, which is never shortened, down from heaven, to help me out of this mess, this problem, this danger, whatever the case may.

Be.

He's not willing that the Lord would delay. He's not willing, but note here that God does hasten. He hastens to us. He hears us when we pray. God speaks in Luke 18 of the unjust judge. It's a parable, but of the unjust judge who finally gives justice because the widow won't stop bothering, won't stop praying, the importunate prayer, as we like to call it.

And God comes speedily to us, says the Lord Jesus Christ. The question for us is, do we hasten to prayer or do we delay it, as I said in the beginning? Finding our own solutions, finding our own ways, find some horizontal or worldly solution to whatever we're in.

Do we hasten to prayer? Now, if you're like me, our prayers are often delayed. My knee resists bending at first, not that I don't like to pray, but the first thought I have, the first instinct we usually have is, how am I going to fix this?

How am I going to figure this thing out? Maybe I made mistakes, and so I've lost a lot of money in the stock market. Maybe I've been obnoxious at my job, and so I have an employment problem. Sometimes, we do it, and yet, what is the slowest part of our solutions?

Making haste to God. And by the time we get to Him, all we can do is say, God, you need to make haste because I've delayed. Now, we don't usually say, I've delayed. We don't like to admit that part, but we should.

Twice, He says, make haste. Don't know how long David waited, but following David's life, I would guess not very long. His first recourse was usually to prayer, as ours should be. God hastens. God does hear.

He is one who delivers those who pray to Him in faith, and says in the book of Hebrews that you must believe that He is, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him. Do you believe that, church?

In your soul, in your heart of hearts, that if when the dilemma, when the problem, when the situation arises, if your first recourse is bent knees and calling upon God, you make.

Haste.

I come to you first. I look to your scripture. I look to the community of the saints. I look for advice from brothers and sisters in the Lord. I go first to you, and trust you to make haste to me. Tough assignment for most of us.

I have to admit, it is for me, too, just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean I have some kind of monopoly on being able to handle these kinds of things. So let's make haste twice. Make haste to deliver, to snatch me out.

Make haste, Father, to help me. Go first to God in prayer. Go quickly to God in prayer. Don't delay your prayer in which you ask God to not delay coming to you. But let's see what he asks for God to do.

Let them, verse two, let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life. Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. Let them turn back because of their shame who say, aha, aha.

What is shame?

Shame in this world around us is a pretty dirty word. They do not like the word shame out there. You shouldn't shame me. I'm being body shamed. I'm being this shamed. I'm being that shamed. It's shame, shame, shame.

And it gets to the point where they so misuse the word that they forget that sometimes we need to just have shame for the things that we've done. And if it's not us who have done something where we should be ashamed before God, then we can call out as he does here, shame to be placed upon those who are coming against.

Us.

Of course, the assumption there is they're coming against us because of our faith in Jesus Christ. Let them be put to shame. What is shame? Shame is that set of circumstances, that providence that comes from God where everything that was trusted, the whole worldview, the whole way of life, everything that you relied upon or they relied upon turns out to be false and turns out to have been almost ridiculous.

Do you remember some years ago, I can't remember what year it was, when Bernie Madoff finally was caught in his Ponzi schemes? And all those people, the famous people, rich people, actors and entertainers and people with lots of money, and you would think lots of smarts fell into these Ponzi schemes.

Well, they turned out to be ashamed.

Why?

Because they were hoping for great riches. They're hoping to be shown how smart and what great investors they were, yet they lost everything. It didn't work. And what they put their trust and their hope in turned out to be complete falsehood.

So they were ashamed. Whether they showed the shame or would use that word or not, doesn't really matter. What they believed in was turned out to be a shameful thing. Call upon them to have their shame and confusion.

David says, those who seek my life, again, most of us or any of us don't have people coming after us to kill us as they might have then. Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt.

Let them turn back because of their shame who say, aha, aha. Now, do you know that God does turn things around, turn around the enemies of the Lord and God's people? You know, the Egyptians in the Red Sea were turned back and made ashamed.

They're drowned. And you think about it for just a moment. They're chasing these people and here's this cloud, this pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night. And they're seeing this and they're saying, whew, we can take that on.

You know, what?

Are you seeing this? Are you following these people? And behind, between you and them is these pillars, day and night. You say, yeah, come on, let's go. We're the most powerful army.

Again, what?

And then the sea collapsed upon them. They were made ashamed. You remember the Syrians chasing after Elisha, the prophet, and he called upon God to blind them and he blinded them and Elisha led them to their enemy, the king of Israel.

Do you remember that? They were ashamed when they had their eyesight brought. So what are we doing here? You're being made ashamed for having gone after God's people, after God's prophet. God does turn them back.

The Assyrians, when they attacked Jerusalem, remember Hezekiah prayed and the angel of the Lord went out and 175 ,000 of them were gone. And then their leader, their king, went back home, was murdered by his sons.

He was made ashamed. Daniel's enemies fed with their families to the lions. It was Haman, hanged on his own gibbet. On and on it goes. Brethren, do you know that God will shame our enemies? Those who persecute us, those who go after us because of our faith in Jesus Christ.

Do you remember Jesus? When He stopped Saul, the Damascus, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Did He not turn Saul around? Not in the same way of those other examples I gave you and yet, He could look back on those things that He now calls rubbish and could we not say He would say those were shameful things because they would not provide what I had hoped for.

All my effort was wasted. They were brought to shame. And let them turn back because of their shame who say, ah-ha, ah-ha, caught ya. Got you in an embarrassing situation, proving to you, to me, that you aren't what you thought you were.

It's like when a Christian gets caught in sin and the world looks upon and says, ah-ha, ah-ha, you see what hypocrites they are. And what is our response?

Sure.

But, as bad as that might have been, whatever that was, like Jimmy Swigert, I have sinned. Do you remember that one? And yet, in Jesus Christ, the shame really goes upon them who want to take advantage of our downfall because we have an advocate, because we have a Redeemer, because we have 1 John 1 night, we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

And so, who says, ah-ha? I wouldn't accept it. I wouldn't accept it, nor should you. These people are anxious to see the downfall. And where's the ultimate, ah-ha, ah-ha? You see everything that you thought you were, you're not.

And we see the results of it. It's Jesus Christ on the cross. When the wagging tongues went by and they teased Him, they derided Him, they mocked Him, said, if you're the Son of God, come on down, get off that crucifixion cross of yours.

Ultimately, it was they who fulfilled this, saying, ah-ha, ah-ha. Anxious to see and glorying in His downfall, as so often the world does when they see the downfall of people in the church. What are we, as the church, what are we to do in situations like this?

It says in 1 Corinthians that we do not rejoice in evil. We do not rejoice in someone's downfall. You who are strong, restore such a one, says in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 1.

What about us?

When we see one who has fallen, we gather around. We say, did they fall because of their sin? They fall because of poor decisions? Whatever the situation may be, we rejoice with those who rejoice, we weep with those who weep, and restore with a gentle spirit, a humble spirit, those who have fallen.

It's not we who say, ah-ha, ah-ha, gotcha. We might receive that. Let us never be those who proclaim that to others. David asked for them to be moved to shame, to confusion, to be turned back, to be brought.

To dishonor.

They delight in hurt. It's all worldly, it's all obviously anti what we stand for here in the church. As opposed to that, you have verse 4, and if the reason that God delivers us in this day is for His glory and for the encouragement of those to whom we proclaim it, what does.

It say here?

May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Right after, let them be put to shame, let them be turned back. But it's almost as if between verse 3 and verse 4, God does that. God does turn them back.

God does put His enemies to shame, and He said, may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. This is worship, folks. This is proclaiming what God has done for me, so that we can all together glory in Him.

May those who love you, who love your salvation, say forevermore, God is great. Do you know when you're delivered from a situation, well, it's just two things, a situation or a sin, a problem that you got into or a sin that you couldn't get away from, and you find that deliverance from God, you've gone to God and say, hasten to me, O Lord, and He answers and He delivers, do we just get up and say, well, that's good, I can get on with things?

Well, not that flippantly, not that quickly, and we thank God for it, and we tell the church of it. We need to hear that. We all need to remember together God does deliver, and sometimes it's palpable things like He can restore a job, a marriage, that sort of thing, and we say, look, I can show you, but sometimes it's that sin that we can't get away from, and we take your word that yes, God has delivered me from this besetting sin, as the Puritans used to call them, but it's an opportunity to give to us more chances to rejoice, so we can weep with those who weep, and in this case, rejoice with you when you rejoice.

May all who seek you rejoice and be glad. We need to know your reason for rejoicing. We need to know why you're glad. We need to know this deliverance, and we all say, forevermore, God is great. Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, needs to be proclaimed over and over and over again, and we need to hear of how He's worked in your life, and what He's done this way.

We have members come tell exactly that, and we need to, in our conversations together, we need to, while we're sitting at lunch, we're in each other's houses in the home groups, or even just in casual friendship, remind each other what God has done for me when He delivered me, when He came speedily, so may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.

This is worship, and we end with verse five, but I am poor and needy, and what does worship.

Do?

What happens when we call upon God to hasten to us, and He does hasten to us, and He delivers us in ways that we couldn't have imagined, and we couldn't have accomplished on our own? We remember our condition before Him, poor and needy.

I am poor and needy, and this is what we remember when we worship. This is what we remember when we come together on Sundays. That it's God who is sufficient. Who is sufficient for these things? None but those who have God in them.

Who is sufficient to accomplish anything? Jesus Christ said, without me you can do nothing. Not some things, not most things, not a few things, nothing. I'm poor and needy. Hasten to me, O God, because I have nothing to offer.

Hasten to me, O God, because I can't find a way out of this. Hasten to me, O God, because you and you alone are my help and my deliverer, O Lord, do not delay. Do you know your condition before God? We're more like the Laodiceans who were blind and naked and beggarly and didn't know it.

He says, you think you're rich. Your bank accounts are full. Your job's going great.

Your house is big.

Your cars are fancy. You think you've got it made. You don't know how poor and beggarly you are. But here David reminds us in verse 5 who we are before God. Poor and needy. You need to know we're poor and needy before we go to God in the first place and say, hasten to me, O God, because I am poor and needy.

Hasten to me quickly, deliver me because I cannot deliver myself. Why? Because only God has the power. The psalm is a remembrance. It's a remembrance for me, a remembrance for you that God does deliver.

It's a memorial offering. I didn't leave myself enough time really to talk about the memorial offering very much, that allusion to the formality in the temple. But when they brought a grain offering, a memorial offering then was taken out of it, a handful of the whole offering of grain, a handful, a remembrance that God only took this much.

I'm going to burn this much on the altar. Here's my offering. This is a memorial offering. The remembrance of the covenant, the remembrance that God has taken me and put me into his covenant people. That was then.

For us today, it would be drawn out of this world and into his kingdom. And then the rest went to the priests, those who served and ministered to the Lord. And so what's the memorial offering if it's alluded to here in Psalm 70?

It's remembrance that's all of God, that what God has given me is all his, and what does he want back? He wants all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. He wants you completely. He wants you to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

But in terms of what he's given us, every good and perfect gift that's from above, from the Father of lights, just a portion, just a portion, and it's a memorial portion. Think of that when you give your tithes and offerings.

What is that really in that sense? Memorial offering. Because he's given you this much, you just take that handful and say, this is for the service of the Lord. It's also in the less temple, formal sense, a remembrance for me and for you that God does hear, that God does hasten to us, and it's a call upon God to remember this, though he never forgets anything, but remember me, O Lord, and hasten to me.

Do you need God? Are you in a dilemma today of your own doing, of others' doings upon you? Hasten to God and seek his deliverance. Hasten now to your knees and seek God's help and find the solution in him so that we can all worship and give joy and give praise and thanks with you for how he delivers.

Amen? Lord God, thank you for this afternoon once again. Thank you for being a God who hears us, delivers, and hastens, Father. You do not give us more than we can bear, but in the temptations, in the troubles, in the problems that we face in this world, you, Father, deliver us before we are crushed under them.

And we thank you for this, Father, and we pray that you continue with us as we continue in prayer. In Jesus' name, amen.