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Pastor David Mitchell
How's everybody today? Excellent. All right, you like in a quiet, pensive mood or the chatty mood today?
Quiet, pensive, good. We'll go deep today then. Or maybe that means
I need to think up some jokes or something to liven up. There aren't many of those in the Bible, not too many.
Well, good to be with you again. Good to be with you guys out there across America.
Thank you so much for being with us. And wow, what a week.
You think about our poor old country. But you know the liberal media now wants to name every shooting in the whole country.
If they'd been doing that forever, you'd be so depressed. If you knew how many people got killed in Chicago last night, you would probably just cry.
But now they're going to name them all for a while because they're trying to get gun control. And yeah, so when they get that, then the only one that will have the gun will be the kid going into school.
No one else will have one. So you know my viewpoint on that. That's just personal opinion, by the way.
That is not Bible. All right, so I don't think guns kill.
I think people do. And our problem is endemic. We took the Ten Commandments out of the school rooms.
I remember I was in about the sixth grade. I had a teacher. Back at Forest Glade School, they taught two grades, each teacher did.
So I had her the previous year, and I came in that fall. We're all in love with her after the first year. She was an awesome teacher.
Second year, I come in there, and she's crying the first day of school. And the kids don't know what's going on.
And she said, well, our government has said it's against the law for us to have Bibles here, to have the
Ten Commandments posted on the wall, and to pray. We can no longer do that. So she said, so let's pray.
And she prayed. But since that time, I did a study on this.
Probably a lot of you were in here when I may have put it in a sermon a good while back, where I went all the way back to even 50 years before this country became a nation.
And they had data on children who killed people. And you might have one a decade, some weird thing where it might have even been an accident, who knows.
Then all of a sudden, when you get to that date where they took the Bible out of the schools, took prayer out of the schools, and you move forward the next decade, it just blew up.
All the kids that were killing people. And now look at it. Now they're killing people all at once, 10 at a time, 20 at a time.
And it's kids doing it. The police officers that, actually, police officers did nothing, as you've probably heard by now, sat there and waited an hour for those kids to bleed out.
Gentlemen, listen, don't be a sheep. If it's your kid and your school's getting attacked, you go in the door and get the guy.
You don't wait on the police. And they handcuffed one mom who was trying to get in there. Do y 'all know that? They handcuffed her and said, you can't go in there.
And they, I don't know if her child made it or not. I didn't hear that part. Yeah, well, that woman didn't because, well, she might've.
Yeah, but the problem is you take, think about kids that don't go to church anymore because most of them don't.
When Charlotte and I were young, we did youth work. And back in those days, what was interesting, because we hadn't even had a child yet.
And then finally we had Katie. And young people, our age, young couples, about that time when you had your first baby, you wanted to get in church because you wanted to raise your kids in church.
Young people do the opposite. Now they got a kid, so they're too busy to go to church. They don't take them to church.
So if they don't see thou shalt not kill on the wall at school, they ain't gonna see it. They're not gonna see it anywhere. And we've removed that.
So now they just don't see it. So to them, it's don't kill unless it feels good, that sort of thing, or whatever, unless you want to.
They don't have any law of God in their heart in this country. And do you know that the scripture says when a nation gets to that place where you're raising young men who will just slaughter innocents, the
Bible calls it, God brings an end to that nation, usually at the hands of another nation.
And then he destroys that nation because they destroyed a nation that had a bunch of Christians or Jews or whatever.
Yeah, so we've got that coming here. You need to know, like, I'm a little uncomfortable because we live kind of close to Fort Hood, which is the largest military base in the country.
That one will get hit. Dallas will get hit. San Antonio, maybe.
I mean, you just got to take a smart thing, get on Google, figure out what you do to fix your house for nuclear fallout.
It's basically plastic, I think, but I need to review it. But I mean, you need to have some things like that prepared because you look at scripture, you look at history, you look at prophecy, and you look at the newspaper, which we don't have anymore, but Yahoo News or whatever you read, and we're there.
I mean, when you have these multiple young people over periods of consecutive years going in and slaughtering innocents,
God will not stand for that. And then we got doctors doing it by the millions. So America has had its best years, and I love
America, but she ain't my country. My country's up there, right? So, you know,
I love Americans more than I do the nation. I hate to say that. I love
Americans, but born and meditate on the word, be in the word, and don't just read it, but chew on it.
Think about it, because it's such a living book. You'll learn something new every time. All right, well, let's get on into the real sermon,
Romans chapter 15, verse three and four.
One more time, hopefully, I believe this might do it. For even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee fell on me.
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through the patience and comfort of scriptures, might have hope.
So verses three and four, verse three is a direct quote from Psalm 69, where the apostle
Paul was led by the Holy Spirit as he wrote Romans to quote Psalm 69 and stick it in Romans.
That means the Holy Spirit is emphasizing something that he's already said. He wants you to see it again. So it's doubly important, or he wouldn't have put it in the
Bible twice. That's one thing I think about. And then verse four says, really, literally what verse four says is just because it was quoted from the
Old Testament doesn't mean it's not for a New Testament church to read and learn from. Because when it says it's for those of us who are written, who live in this age, to learn from things that were written in the old time, aforetime, then it's for us.
So there are things we can learn. So what we did is we've gone out there to Psalm 69, where this quote came from, try to figure out why it's in this passage in Romans.
Why did the Lord put it there for us to be studying today? And what does it talk about back there?
So we've been talking a little bit about the verse where that verse three specifically, the last part of Romans 15, three, where did that come from?
And we found it there in Psalm 69. Now, what I like to do, I don't like to just go to Psalm 69 and find that verse.
I need to know the context because you don't really know anything about what
God is saying, unless you realize he writes as a letter. He doesn't write as a thought. He doesn't just give you thoughts.
He gives you a letter. So you have to know the context of the letter that it's in to even interpret it properly.
That's just one of the greatest rules of Bible interpretation know the context. So you start up at round verse one. Well, let's look at Psalm 69, one and two, just to review.
It says, oh, and what we learned from this is that it's obvious from the passage in Romans that it is
Jesus Christ that is talking about that was saying these things. Well, what's interesting is he wasn't saying these things.
He was thinking these things while he was on the cross. And it's called a messianic song.
The way you know that is because Romans 15 sheds light on that. So while Jesus is hanging on the cross in our place, dying for us as a substitute, giving his blood as the payment in full for every sin you will ever do, he was thinking these things.
So it started out, just review a little bit. It starts out thinking, save me, oh God, for the waters are come in and to my soul.
I sink in deep mire when there is no standing. I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me.
And if you went back and you kept reading what we talked about last Sunday, it is a picture of hell.
It is a picture of separation from God. He prays out to his father who he was with from all, if you want to call it eternity past, before, in other words, before God made anything, you had the father, son, the
Holy Spirit in fellowship. He was always with him, always his delight before the father, he says.
But here, all of a sudden, the father turns his head and he's separated from his son and his son feels that separation.
He's praying out to the father, not about so much the pain of the cross, the physical pain, but that separation.
Because the first, if you inhale and say a thing, the first is, and this is what
Jesus was experiencing. And those first few verses kind of talk about that. Then we talked about Isaiah 53 a little bit, because what was interesting is if you go down to verse 13 in Psalm 69, we worked our way all the way down there last time, but when we get to verse 13 in Psalm 69, where Jesus is still praying and thinking and contemplating things in his heart while he's being crucified on the cross, he said, 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.
So Jesus knew he wasn't hearing him. He was separated from him, but he keeps praying anyway. And he says, but father,
I know there is an acceptable time when you will hear this prayer and you will raise me from the dead and you won't leave my soul in hell.
And all of that, all the things we know from other scriptures. But it was interesting because if you look in the
Hebrew, the word acceptable, it literally in Hebrew, it means to satisfy a debt.
Isn't that amazing? So Jesus is praying in his heart, in his mind,
God save me from this, but I know you won't because you're not even hearing me because you're separated from me, but God can hear everything.
But he says, when the sin that has been saved, then save me from this. That was his prayer.
That prayer was answered. And so what's great is last time we spent all that time on the hard part where he's suffering separation from God and what that felt like to him because he did it in place of us so that we don't have to ever feel that or experience that.
All of that was done for us. And now we get to the part where it starts to turn because we start to get to that acceptable time or that time where God is satisfied that the sin debt has been paid.
And so that's the joyous part to read about. Now, it's interesting because in Isaiah 53, it talks about that same word acceptable or satisfied or sin debt paid.
And the New Testament calls it propitiation. And it's the one thing, I won't say the only thing, but it is the one thing that I know of that Jesus did for God, the
Father, not for us. Most of what we think about when he died on the cross for us, right?
To save us from our sins. But one thing he did was for the Father, he satisfied his justice and his wrath against sin and his holiness when he died in our place and when he paid the sin debt in full.
So that's called the doctrine of propitiation. Well, you read about that in Isaiah 53 in the
Old Testament, but you also read about it in Psalm chapter three, starting at verse 23 in the New Testament and many other places, especially in the
New Testament. But in Isaiah 53, verse 11, he shall see the travail of the son's soul and shall be satisfied.
That is propitiation. God the Father sees the travail of his son. When did the Father see this?
In our time, on our timeline, when did he see it? When he was suspended from that cross.
Because God the Father had removed himself from the son and his soul was in travail.
And we read about that all the way, the first 15 or so verses of Psalm 69, the travail.
He was just pleading, but God was not hearing. And God saw that and saw him dying and eventually saw him die.
And he was satisfied that that paid the sin debt for all of God's people for all of time. It's beautiful to find that in the phrase, in an acceptable time,
Jesus said. Hear my prayer. Wow. That's why it's good sometimes to dig a little deeper than the English. Look at the
Hebrew, look at the Greek when you can. We have helps. You don't have to know the language.
You can go out and get Logos software or the Blue Letter Bible. You can look these things up and it just opens it up to deeper understanding and even more colors of understanding or shades of colors of different meanings and things.
But Jesus was very much talking about whenever the sin debt's paid, then come and get me.
Think about that. Now think if that was your only child saying that and you knew they had to go through something, but they're pleading with you to save them.
No wonder we had an earth, the entire world had an earthquake, not just a local earthquake. The entire earth quaked while Jesus was on that cross and the entire sky around the entire globe turned dark and the graves were open.
Nothing came out of them yet until three days later. But when Jesus rose, people came out of those graves and walked around the city as a type or a fore view of the great resurrection.
That was not a resurrection, by the way, because those people had to die again. In a true resurrection, you don't die, you're changed and you live forever.
You have an immortal body. So there's a distinction there. In Romans 3 .23, the scripture says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
We use that in the Romans road a lot, but look at verse 24, being justified freely by his grace for the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the redemption of the sins of the just through the forbearance of God.
And later it goes on and it says that we're justified by faith without the deeds of the law. And it goes on and it says that it is not only that God justifies his people, but it is just for him to do that.
Why? Because Jesus paid the sin debt, right? All of that is found and it all has to do with this beautiful doctrine of propitiation that Jesus was discussing when he said at an acceptable time, hear me.
Now, one other thing I wanna show in Romans 3 .16 is interesting because it says, therefore it is a faith that it might be by grace to the end, the promise might be sure to all the seed.
That little phrase, all the seed, the promise is sure to all the seed. It's very fortunate for those of us sitting in this room that that is in the
Bible in many places, especially in the old Testament, because that is including the Gentile, not just the
Jew. He came to die and preach to the Gentile first, I mean, the
Jew first and then the Gentile, but it also includes the Gentile. The Abrahamic covenant includes all of the children of Abraham, which includes the people that will be saved out of every nation.
And that's what the phrase, the seed means. The reason I bring that up is because we're gonna see it again. So now back in Psalm 69, let's pick it up at verse 14.
It starts to get to be more joyous. Last week was dark because we were talking about the blackness of darkness of hell.
And that Jesus experienced that on our behalf. I am not saying that he physically went to hell.
I'm saying while he was on the cross, he was separated from the father and his soul experienced hell.
As you can tell by what he said in Psalm 69, you can just listen to him and see what he said.
It is true that after he was buried, his soul was already risen, by the way.
It wasn't the third day when he himself was loose from that Bible, that body that was in that tomb for Abraham's bosom or the paradise part of Sheol.
And he preached to the saved Jews that had already died, but they weren't in heaven because the blood hadn't been presented yet.
So he preached to them, told them the good news. You're about to go to real heaven. This was paradise. It's wonderful.
We'll wait till you see heaven because I'm going to present my blood right now and I'm taking you with me.
He accomplished all that during those three days. And then he also went to the third heaven, sprinkled his blood on what we now call the mercy seat, turned it into a mercy seat.
And now here we live a whole different way after that than could be lived before it. It's a whole different dispensation now that that's been accomplished.
We have it so much better than the Old Testament saint had it. Even though they had salvation, even though they were saved forever, the ones who belonged to the
Lord, there's things we have that they didn't. For example, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They had the presence of the
Holy Spirit, but he didn't live in their body like he does for us now after all these things happen.
So now in Psalm 69, 14, let's pick this up and let's talk about, because here's what's happening.
We're getting to watch from the inside of Jesus Christ's mind the very act of salvation, or you might call it the operation of God.
And people are so confused about it. And I hate to say it, I grew up Southern Baptist. Then when this church was founded, it was independent
Baptist. It's just Bible church now because so many groups have gone off in weird directions.
I mean, I'm still Baptist if you want to read Spurgeon because he was a Baptist, I'm like him, but that was 150 years ago.
It's all different now. But when you think about the great doctrines of the
Bible, the Baptist were greatly used of God through history.
Wouldn't you agree with that? And it's just sad that Satan gets into every human institution and begins to change it.
Humanism gets in there. But Charles Spurgeon of all people understood that salvation was of God, not of man.
The problem that I'm getting to is in churches that we grew up in and loved, now if you went and you heard how they preach the gospel, how they tell a person how salvation works, it's not the same as it used to be 150 years ago when
Spurgeon preached. It's not the same as it is in the Bible because it's all humanistic.
It's all about you making a decision. It's all about you giving your life to Christ, about you surrendering.
There's nowhere in the Bible that says if you surrender, that saves you. She doesn't say that. That all comes from preachers that you hear and you copy it because it sounds cool,
Brother Ben. Cool old preacher said it, so we repeat it. What the Bible says about salvation is that God looked forward in time, like we talked about last week, and he knew that his son, before he made anything, could foreview and see the planet
Earth out of all the planets of creation, out of all the universe, and his particular love was on that planet,
Jesus's was. And on the planet, his particular love was on human beings.
And because the Father's plan included the fall of man so that the entire race chose to fall, they did what they wanted to do, and they chose to fall, and they were all lost.
And God the Father, because of his love for his son, said, I'm going to save a remnant of that race and give it to my son as a love gift.
And the whole Bible talks about it once you see that. But see, 150 years ago, nearly every preacher saw that.
Nowadays, they don't know that's how it works. So as his plan continues, his son was crucified before the foundation of the world, the
Bible says in the book of Revelation, which means in God's great counsel, it was already determined that's his plan.
So when Jesus came and was on that cross, he was dying in the place of that remnant, not everybody.
See, preachers now say he died for everybody. The Bible doesn't teach that. It seems to teach it in about eight verses. But there are hundreds of verses that make that impossible to mean what those seem to mean.
I mean, it's just logic if you think about it. If he died for everybody, since it's his blood that saves us, then everybody's going to be saved.
But Jesus himself said, few there be. So that can't fit. You got to make it fit the whole of the Bible. So he died in the sins of that group of people that the
Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit had already known he has enough, Ephesians 1, he knew us before the foundation of the world with love.
He didn't just know about us. He knew us with love, like a mother loves a baby, like a grandpa loves a baby.
Wow, maybe that's even better. I don't know. It's deeper, I think, because I'm older.
Maybe not deeper than a mother's love. How would I know? Not a mother, but I am a grandpa. But anyway, and he had that love for us before he made anything.
So that's God doing that, not us. Then we're born in our little life, and it's all about us, because our parents teach us that.
Like we're the center of the universe as babies. And we grow up, it's all about self and selfishness.
And I'm God, actually. I determine where I'm going. I determine what I'm going to do, determine who
I'm going to hang out with. I determine all this stuff, and I'm God. And then the Bible says the next plan is that the
Holy Spirit comes to those people that he knew, and he wakes them up at some point predetermined by God when their spiritual birthday would be, just like your physical birthday was predetermined by God and your parents.
You had nothing to do with it. Your spiritual birthday is the same. You have nothing to do with it. And God, the
Holy Spirit comes and knocks on your door or comes inside the car when you're going 70 miles an hour like he did with me down the highway headed towards home.
And he awakens you. That's called the calling. He calls you and says, there's
Jesus, look at him. Open your eyes and see him for the first time. What will you do with him? Well, he's irresistible at that point because the
Holy Spirit changed your want to. That's his job. And he opened your ears where you can hear the word of God.
Instead of being an old, boring book, you might try to read 10 times like I did going through college and set aside because I hated it.
All of a sudden, all I want to do is study it. That is a change that the Holy Spirit made. And the
Bible says while we were yet in our sins, he quickened us, brought us to life. Boy, that started working all of a sudden.
Thank you, Ben. Oh, you did that because I stepped back and then you didn't know I was going to do that. Anyway, that was good timing.
He quickened us. He brought us from death to life while we were still in our sins. What did you have to do with that,
I would ask? Nothing. So everything you did was an effect of that. It didn't cause it.
Now, preachers today make that be the cause and that's the problem. We could all be worshiping together in one church.
You don't need the denomination. If it weren't for this, every denomination picks four or five of those effects and thinks they're the cause.
And they look at the other person who chose effects and said, those are the cause and they disagree on that. And they're all wrong because none of that caused it because it calls it the operation of God.
Now here we see Jesus in the middle of this operation. The operation is taking place.
It's like heart surgery. It's like God is taking your old, hard, wicked heart and mind out of our body and sticking it in the place of Jesus's chest, taking his soft, malleable,
God -loving heart, putting it in our chest and killing him and letting us live. That's a great operation.
And God did it all. All you did and all I did was wake up to it. We did not save ourselves.
Now, so let's look at this. Deliver me out of the mire.
Let's look at this salvation process as it happens from Jesus's viewpoint inside of his head.
Can you even imagine that we have this information?
You wouldn't have it without this book. And it is the perfect, by the way. Greek has this little thing called neuter where it's not male or female.
It's not masculine or feminine. It's a thing. And Paul said, when that which is perfect, that thing which is perfect comes, certain things cease and go away.
And they did. In the history of the church shows that they did. People are trying to bring it back.
That's fake. God's gonna bring it back in the last three and a half years of tribulation. You know, that's my favorite topic, right?
But watch this. Where'd I get that, Katie? But anyway, watch this. Is that the right phrase?
Is that exactly right? So watch this. Deliver me out of the mire.
Let me not sink. Now, he's still praying. When that acceptable time comes, then
I want you to hear this prayer. So think about this. Jesus was fully God and fully man, was he not?
When he's hanging on that cross with nails in his hands, do you think he's experiencing the mannish side of that a little bit?
As a man, feeling the nails, feeling the pressure on his lungs where because of his body weight, he can't get air in his lungs.
He is slowly suffocating to death. Now, I know Jesus was different than us. He couldn't die unless he gave up the ghost.
We don't give up the ghost. We have it taken away from us on the right moment, right? But here he is.
I think as a man, it's awfully smart for him to keep praying,
Lord, save me, because he doesn't know when the acceptable time has happened yet or not.
There were things Jesus didn't know when he was here. Would you agree with that? He didn't know when the second coming was gonna happen when he was here.
He knows now. He knew before he came here, right? He laid aside a few things to be a man.
And one of them was, he doesn't know when the sin debt's been fully paid yet or when it's been acceptably to the point where God would hear this prayer.
So he just keeps praying it. So same prayer that we saw in the first 13 verses, in a way, just worded differently, he says, deliver me out of the mire.
That's like a continual falling, like quicksand. The Bible, I mean, we know scientists tell us that in the center of this earth, because the way gravity works, if you were in there, you'd feel like you were falling forever.
Well, Hades is in the center of this earth. So people that die in what we call go to hell, they're actually in Hades for a while until the great white throne judgment, and then they're cast into the lake of fire, which who knows where that is?
We might figure it out. I don't know that I've studied where that is. I don't know if the Bible tells, maybe it does, but I know where it tells
Hades is in the center of the earth. It's a continual falling, and Jesus is experiencing this on the cross.
He feels it. He's like, I'm sinking in quicksand. I'm falling. Stop it, Lord. Hold me up.
Don't let me fall all the way into this place. And let me not sink. Let me be delivered from them that hate me and out of the deep waters.
That's the human race that hated Jesus because they hated his father. Let not the water flood overflow me.
This is all a picture of hell. It's symbolism. Neither let the deep swallow me up.
Now the deep is not a picture. Hell is often called the deep. So is the ocean in the Bible, but sometimes hell is.
Let the deep not swallow me up and let not the pit, often shoal is called the pit in English, right?
Let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. Hear me,
O Lord, because of your loving kindness and because your loving kindness is good, turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.
You see, it's starting to turn here. It's almost the acceptable time where the father restores fellowship with Jesus.
And hide not thy face from thy servant, for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily, draw nigh unto my soul and redeem it.
Don't you think that's interesting that Jesus asked that about himself as a man? Deliver me because did you know that Jesus had to die and raise from the dead, even though he was the
God man, he had to die and raise from the dead and be completely obedient to the father for him to be saved?
And I don't mean saved like we are, but for, you know how Otis used to point this out, brother
Bill, do you remember this? Well, let me say Jesus sat at the right hand of the father and said he was set there.
Remember him teaching that? That means the father put him there, but he didn't have, you know, if you think about possibilities, he might not have, if he had not obeyed and suffered all that he suffered for us according to God's perfect will, yeah, he wouldn't be set there, but God did set him there because he did.
So I know there was only one plan, but there are still facts to, would you agree with this?
There is the sovereignty of God, but there's also responsibility. Jesus was responsible to keep the law perfectly and he had to, had he not, he would not have been set there, but he did.
So now he says, redeem my soul, deliver me because of my enemies, thou hast known my reproach, that includes
Satan and the whole one third of the fallen angels, by the way, and the tares, the goats.
Thou hast known my reproach and my shame and my dishonor that men put on him unjustly.
My adversaries are all in front of your eyes, father, so save me. That is a great way, ladies and gentlemen, for you to pray, for me to pray when we're under spiritual warfare attack.
Like, Lord, you know me, I am not perfect, but you saved me and I want to live with you.
And with all my heart, I want to do what you want me to do. And Satan's after me right now, or some of his minions, humans that follow him are after me, whatever.
That's a great way to pray, like Jesus is praying right now. Hide not thy face from thy servant, for I'm in trouble.
Hear me speedily, draw nigh into my soul and redeem it. Deliver me from my enemies. Thou hast known my reproach and my shame and dishonor.
My adversaries are all before me. Reproach has broken my heart. I am full of heaviness.
I looked for some to take pity and there was none. I looked for comforters and I found none.
They gave me gall to drink. Remember, and he refused it because what is gall?
It comes from the opium. It's an opiate that they gave him. He didn't want his senses to be dull.
He refused it. Later, they offered him vinegar and he took that, which was nasty,
I'm sure. But he said, and in thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink. So it mentions both accounts.
It talks about the New Testament. So we know this is Jesus. And he continues his silent prayer to his father, who had up until now separated himself from his son for your sake and for mine.
Think about that. This broke the very heart of the son of God. And they gave him gall to drink and he refused it.
And they later gave him vinegar to drink and he received it. And in John 19 .25, if you want to turn there right quick, let's see what time it is.
It's good, we started a little early, fortunately. John 19 .25, I'll get this cuff undone where I can see my watch.
We're gonna all be in trouble. John 19 .25,
now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother and his mother's sister,
Mary, the wife of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene. And the only man out of all the disciples was
John. The rest of them ran in fear, thinking Jesus had not, Jesus isn't who he said he was.
That's what they were thinking. And they went back to the cross. And doubt crept into their hearts. And when
Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple, that's John standing by whom he loved, the disciple he loved, he said unto him, this is your mother.
And he said to the mother, behold, this is your son. He took care of his mom before he died. Think about that.
Then said he to the disciple, behold thy mother. And from that hour, that disciple took her into his own home, that's
John. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, remember how he said when the acceptable time comes, he now knows that's already been accomplished.
Everything he has to do to satisfy God's wrath, he knows it's been accomplished. Now don't you find that's interesting that that's even before he died, the physical death anyway.
But what had he already done? Tell me. Think about it.
Too close to the lunch to think, right? What had he already done? His heart hadn't stopped beating, but what had he already done?
He gave his blood up. Now the only reason his heart's still pumping because he's God too, he's not just a man.
So he couldn't die unless he just said, okay, I'll die. He gave up the ghost, but he hadn't done that yet.
But he'd already given his blood. His blood was given for us. So everything has been accomplished that the scripture might be fulfilled when it said,
I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar and they filled a sponge with it and put it on hyssop.
It's interesting because hyssop is the same weed in the book of Exodus where they used the hyssop weed and dipped it in the blood and put it at the doorpost and the death angel passed by.
Tell me man wrote this book. You really think they would have thought to put that in there? Man did not write this book.
God is the author of this book. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar and they filled a sponge with the vinegar, put it on hyssop and put that to his mouth.
And when Jesus therefore had received the vinegar on the hyssop, which pictures faith by the way, it's a picture of faith,
God -given faith, not human doubtful faith, but the faith of Christ is what it pictures. He said, it is finished.
And in Greek, that means the sin debt is paid. The acceptable time had come. God was propitiated and he bowed his head and he gave up the ghost.
Wow. He fell into the pit of the blackness of the darkness forever, or at least towards it.
But then the rest of Psalm 69 records the fact that the father had heard his prayer all along and he awakened,
Jesus awakened to the brilliantly shining glory of the face of his father restored in fellowship who had brought him back to life according to the promise.
Psalm 69, 29 continues, but I am poor and sorrowful. Let thy salvation,
O God, set me up on high. I will praise the name of God with song and will magnify him with thanksgiving forever and ever and ever.
This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or a bullock that has horns and hoofs.
The Bible says Jesus died once and for all for the sins of his people. Whereas those animals had to be sacrificed all the time, every day and every year.
And this was better than that because this was the true lamb that those could only picture.
Verse 32 says, the humble shall see this and be glad for throughout all of the last 2000 years of history.
The humble, that means people who don't think they're God. They look at the cross and they're glad.
The prideful say is probably not real. I was reading something on the internet trying to do a little quick research on when did
Psalm 69 get written? It's supposed to be in my Schofield and it's the only book he didn't date.
Schofield dated all the other books. I said, wow, I didn't remember that, that he didn't date it. So I looked it up on Google, which takes me out somewhere.
I didn't even notice. I just said, well, now I'm gonna get that pretty close. Everybody knows about David. And the first thing it said was,
David, if he ever existed, wrote this a thousand years ago.
And I'm going, that didn't used to be anywhere in an encyclopedia or dictionary anywhere when I was a boy. No one said that.
No one said that. Wouldn't not dare say that. And now it's everywhere.
But the humble don't talk like that. The prideful talk like that. And your heart shall live that seek
God. Verse 33, for the Lord hears the poor and despises not the prisoners.
And at this very moment, salvation is born. Look at verse 34.
Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that move therein.
For God shall save Zion, which is a picture of all God's people actually, because we know through the
Abrahamic covenant that include Gentiles too. God will save Zion. So now it's talking about salvation because he said it is finished.
It's all complete. God's pouring out his wrath on sin has happened to Jesus rather than to us.
And God will save Zion and will build the cities of Judah that they may dwell there and have it in their possession.
That will literally happen during the thousand year millennial kingdom. And the seed also, remember
I told you to remember that phrase, the seed while ago in Isaiah 53, where it said the seed in other places.
Here it is again in this passage in Psalm 69. He's gonna save Zion. Who's that?
Primarily who is that? Literally Israel, but look at what else. Thy seed also of his servants.
Who's that? That's all of Abraham's seed. That's the Gentiles and the Jews. That's every human that God saved from the fallen race.
Every member of that remnant that he chose to save is who he's talking about here.
And that seed also of his servants shall inherit it. And they that love his name shall dwell therein.
And guess what? No natural man, woman, boy or girl in this world has ever loved his name because none seeketh
God, not one. The Holy Spirit has to quicken a person and open their eyes and open their ears and change their heart and put that love of Jesus in their heart, put the faith of Jesus in their heart, put the
Holy Spirit in their heart and 33 or 30 other things all in one nanosecond for salvation to happen.
It is an operation of God and it's a miracle that it happened to any of us. None of it could have happened naturally or because we wanted it to because one second before we got saved, we didn't wanna get saved or we'd already gotten saved.
It's all of God. The preachers of old got it right. The modern preachers have got it wrong.
And at the same time, man, at the same time, may every son of man who rejects the
Savior be warned. Now watch this. This is pretty amazing. Be warned, Christ also prayed within his heart on the cross the following.
Look at verse 22 in Psalm 69. Now this, like you don't build huge churches preaching this part, okay?
But you build deep churches, people that understand the word, understand God, understand
God's ways better than some churches. You gotta preach it all.
Now look at this. Human, humanity does not like the next verses because look what
Jesus prayed here. Let their table be a snare unto them.
Now this is right after God answered his prayers, stopped him from falling into that pit, told him,
I am satisfied. The sin desk's been paid. All you got left to do is give up the ghost, but we're still communing because he still was alive on the cross.
We're still communing. All of that salvation, everything God the
Father needed to save his people has been done because Jesus said it is finished, was the last thing he said. It's complete.
The sin debt's paid. Everything's done. And now Jesus prays this before he gives up the ghost. Tell me if you've ever seen this before.
I frankly had not paid attention to it before. Let their table, that's the people that were mocking him, the people that were spitting on him, the people that told him, hey, if you're
God, come down from that cross. That's the ghost. That's the tears. That's Satan's seed.
That's the Pharisees. Jesus said, you're like your father, the devil, and his deeds you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning.
He was a liar from the beginning. And if I said, I know not God, I would be a liar like unto you. I know
God. You don't know God. Where I go, you cannot come. I'm from above. You're from beneath. He's talking to those people now, let their table become a snare before them.
And that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.
So all those times God made the sun come up on their crops and the wicked wealthy get wealthy.
Now don't think for a minute God can't make his people wealthy. Look at Abraham. Look at even Lot. The backslidden
Christian was wealthy. Look at Job. Look at John who owned his own fish and bread. Had employed,
I mean, and who was it? Matthew, the tax collector, filthy rich. God saved rich people too.
But the wicked people that get money wickedly, talking about them right here, let that very money be a trap to them.
And you know, the Bible says it does because their kids commit suicide because they never had to work. You know, all the stuff you read about.
A lot of it in Hollywood, right? Or in the music industry. Let it be a trap to them,
Jesus. Pray. Now let me ask you, does Jesus get his prayers answered? All right. So he continues.
Let their eyes be darkened. Now they ask him, why do you speak in parables? He said, because if I spoke plainly, the tares would hear it, believe it, and I'd have to save them.
But I ain't saving them because I only save the ones the Father tells me to save. No one comes to me unless the
Father draws them and of them I will lose nothing. And it all just fits together once you see it, right?
Let their eyes be darkened. Does that seem like something that a modern creature would say that God prayed?
That the Son of God prayed to the Father? Does that sound like something you're gonna hear at some big mega church with 20 ,000 people sitting there?
And listen, yeah, I'm jealous of them. Of course, of course I am. Look here. Yeah, I wish we had 20 ,000 because I've prepared the same sermon.
Takes the same amount of time. I could help 20 ,000 if God wanted me to. And if he did, I would.
Maybe there are 20 ,000 out there. I hadn't thought about that. But here's the thing. If they were to sit up and pray that God prayed,
God would draw their eyes to stop market meetings.
And I talk about some of this stuff sometimes. Not a lot, not like here, but I mean, I'll mention it.
And they'll come to me at the break and they'll say, I don't believe that's right. And I'll take this book right here. I'll open it up and I'll say, read this right here.
And they'll read it. It says the thing they say is not right. And they say, I still don't believe it. And I said, then there's no hope for you.
Don't worry about it. We can disagree on it. Wow, their eyes have been darkened.
Man, I can't tell. Maybe the Lord's gonna open their eyes later. And that's awesome if he does.
But until he does, and if he does, and if he chooses to, because it's his will, they're not gonna see it.
Because Jesus asked the Father not to let them see it. You see that in the scripture this morning? Are you looking at that? It's not me saying it.
This was written 1 ,060 years ago. I looked it up on Google. Or maybe it was written.
Maybe I did write this in my study. Isn't that ridiculous? It's just laughable.
But their eyes have been darkened. How can they not say stuff like that? Pour out your indignation upon them.
Let thy wrathful anger take hold of them after you've darkened their eyes where they can't see the gospel.
Let their habitation be desolate. What does that sound like? Where there's no water? Where dip the tip of your finger in water and put it on my tongue?
Or there's no water there? Let none dwell in their tents.
You know what the tent pictures? Their body. Did you know that spirit beings are the most uncomfortable when they can't have some body to dwell in?
Let their souls be as if they don't have a body. Now they'll have one. It'll just keep being burned up every second.
Then it's there again and it burns up again. Then it's there again. I guess there's enough of that time that's desolate where that soul feels like it's naked and they don't like it.
It's funny how they like to be naked here, right? But when they get there, they don't wanna be that way.
They don't wanna be without a body. For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten.
Now I want you to think about that. Jesus is talking to the father and he said, these people that I want you to darken their eyes and put them in desolation forever, it's because they persecuted him who you smoke,
God. So who's Jesus saying actually put him on the cross? The father.
You smoke me, but they mocked me, punish him because it's not their right to kill me.
Would you agree with that? Listen, the Romans and the Jews did not have a right to take his life. But the father, if he wanted to provide a only holy sacrifice that there ever could have been to save some of us and he chose to do it in his own righteousness and goodness and his wisdom, is it okay for him to do it?
Well, we better hope so because he did it. For they persecuted him that you chose to smite and they talk to the grief of those whom thou has wounded.
That's me, that's Jesus. Add iniquity to their iniquity. Do you hear the prayer?
He said, look, darken their eyes and as they sin, make them even more sinful. Did you not talk about that in Sunday school this morning?
Psalm 1, verse 1, three types of sin, three types of sinners.
Add iniquity to their iniquity and let them not come into your righteousness. Now, wait a minute.
See, the modern gospel says you get saved by you being righteous. You know, dear Jesus, come to my heart and say amen.
Get baptized, live for him, tithe, go to church, all this stuff and as you do these righteous acts, he will save you.
The Bible says, no, that doesn't work that way. You have to be given the righteousness of Jesus. Now, what's that called?
What's the doctrine that is called? Imputation, right? Like when, you remember a while ago, I said he was on the cross and God had taken his beautiful heart and given it to us and taken our wicked hearts and put it on him and he died with that one.
That's imputation. He gives us his righteousness, the righteousness of his own son to save us.
And here Jesus says, Lord, don't give them that. Well, do not give them your righteousness.
They ain't got any of their own. So they're not gonna make it where we're gonna live forever. And I don't want them there and you don't want them there and God's people don't want them there.
So don't give them your righteousness. Man, don't redeem them. Don't be propitiated toward them.
You see this nonsense that people teach. He died for everybody. Would that verse be possible? If he died for everybody, how can he then turn and pray?
Don't give that to them though. Oh, but I died for him. So I got to give it to him. No, it doesn't fit.
The preachers of old had it right. That's why I love to read old books. I don't like the new one too much. Let them be blotted out of the book.
Have y 'all ever seen this before like this? I've read it, but I never thought of it. Jesus is praying it right before he gave up the ghost against the world system, against Satan and his demons and all the humans that are the tares and the goats and they're his little minions.
He prayed this against them. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous.
So the dividing line is drawn. The line between the sheep and the goats, the line between the wheat and the tares, the line between those that hate
God and our government and in our world and in churches, some churches and in our seminaries, some seminaries and our colleges and other organizations, the line between those that hate
God in those organizations and those that love the Lord Jesus Christ, that line has been forever drawn.
The line between the darkness of hell and separation from God and the resplendent light of the presence of the
Lord forever and ever and ever. That line was drawn 2000 years ago while our savior suffered for us on the cross.
Romans 15 three says, for even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach the father fell on me.
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Let's stand and have prayer together. Lord, we thank you so much for your word.
It is magnificently woven together in such a way that no man could have put it together and no man can take it apart.
No man in his natural state can understand a word of it and no man who is saved can read two pages without getting something from it.
And more and more as they live this life and study. So Lord, give us more and more we ask as we study, help us to be brighter lights and saltier salt in this world that's getting darker and darker.
We ask you Lord to be with us, especially with our children, our young people, they're gonna face persecution that we didn't face even in this country.
Make them strong and Lord bless us as we go into a time of needed fellowship now and bless the food we're about to have in Jesus name, amen.