Latest / Reformed Thinking / When Zeal for God Brings Suffering and Shame (Psalm 69) | Charles Spurgeon
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome back. It is.
- 0:03It's good to have you with us for another session of Reformed
- 0:06thinking. It is good to be.
- 0:07Here we have, well, we have quite the session ahead of us
- 0:09today. We're continuing our mission,
- 0:11which is, you know, essentially taking a stack of these heavy,
- 0:15sometimes dusty, but always heavy theological sources and
- 0:18trying to extract the real gold for you, the listener.
- 0:23We want to get to the heart of the matter without getting too
- 0:25bogged down in the academic weeds.
- 0:27Although I have to say, given our topic today, we might just
- 0:30find ourselves in some deep waters.
- 0:32Deep Waters is a very, very appropriate way to phrase it.
- 0:35In fact, it's the central metaphor of the text we're about
- 0:38to get into. So to set the stage for
- 0:41everyone, we're looking at one of the giants of the faith,
- 0:43Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and his massive work on the Psalms, the
- 0:47Treasury of David. Specifically, we're zoning in on
- 0:52Psalm 69 now before we even open the text.
- 0:55I think it's important we establish where we're coming
- 0:57from. You and I are both approaching
- 0:58this as Protestant Christians. Yes, we hold to reform theology
- 1:03and generally we adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith.
- 1:07That's the lens through which we view Scripture.
- 1:09And honestly, it's the lens through which Spurgeon viewed it
- 1:12as well. Right.
- 1:13He was a Baptist, of course. A Baptist, certainly, but his
- 1:15understanding of salvation, his soteriology, was thoroughly
- 1:19reformed. So if you're listening and you
- 1:21hear us talk about things like election or the imputation of
- 1:24sin or the perseverance of the Saints, well, that's the
- 1:28framework we're operating in. It is.
- 1:31And today, the mission is pretty specific.
- 1:33We aren't just reading Psalm 69 as a song King David wrote
- 1:37about, you know, having a really bad day.
- 1:39No, definitely not. If we read it only as David's
- 1:41diary, we completely miss the point.
- 1:44We're looking. At it as a direct window into
- 1:45the suffering of Christ. That's the key, Spurgeon argues.
- 1:49And I think the New Testament confirms this over and over,
- 1:52that while David penned these words, the Spirit intended them
- 1:55to speak most clearly, most profoundly of the crucified 1.
- 1:59Let's start right at the top of them with the title.
- 2:02I love how Spurgeon pays such close attention to these small
- 2:05details. The title of Psalm 69 is to the
- 2:08chief musician upon Shoshanim, and Shoshanim means lilies.
- 2:12It does lilies. And Spurgeon immediately points
- 2:14out this this huge contrast. We saw this title back in Psalm
- 2:1741 one, but there it felt different.
- 2:20Here we have a Psalm that is just full of misery, of sinking
- 2:23and mire, enemies everywhere, and yet it's titled Upon the
- 2:28Lilies. It's a striking paradox, isn't
- 2:30it? In Psalm 41, you might think of
- 2:32golden lilies, you know, the kind of grow in the ivory
- 2:34palaces of a king. But here here's Persian says we
- 2:37have to view this as the Lily among thorns.
- 2:39The Lily among thorns. This is the Lily of the Valley,
- 2:42but it's blooming in the dark, damp soil of the Garden of
- 2:45Gethsemane. That's a powerful image, but it
- 2:48does raise the question how can a song about such just utter
- 2:51misery be titled after such a beautiful flower?
- 2:54I think it speaks to the beauty of the work being accomplished
- 2:57in that misery. To the natural eye, the
- 3:00suffering described here is ugly.
- 3:02It's mud, it's mire, it's crying, it's reproach.
- 3:05But to the eye of faith, looking at the work of Christ, it's the
- 3:09most beautiful thing in all of history.
- 3:11So it's the Lily among the thorns of our sin.
- 3:14Exactly. The beauty is in the
- 3:16substitution, in the love that endures such ugliness for our
- 3:19sake. Now, we do have to be a little
- 3:21careful here, right? Because Spurgeon mentions a
- 3:24specific caveat. He does.
- 3:26He's very clear. He says we have to read this as
- 3:29of himself and of some other man, meaning David is speaking
- 3:32and Christ is speaking. There are verses where the 2
- 3:35they just overlap perfectly, but there are other verses where
- 3:38they separate. Right, because David was a
- 3:40Sinner. Precisely.
- 3:41There are confessions of foolishness in this song that we
- 3:44just cannot apply to the sinless Christ, at least not in terms of
- 3:46his personal guilt. And on the other side of that
- 3:48coin, there are deaths of innocent suffering here that
- 3:51David, for all his troubles, never truly experienced to the
- 3:54degree Christ did. So we need discernment.
- 3:57We have to have the discernment to see where the type David ends
- 4:00and where the anti type Christ begins.
- 4:03Spurgeon actually says he enters this exposition with much
- 4:06trembling. He feels like he's entering the
- 4:08Holy of Holies. So maybe let's take off our
- 4:11shoes, so to speak, and step into this first section verses
- 4:15one through 4, The sinking soul. The imagery here is just, It's
- 4:19terrifying. Save me, O God, for the waters
- 4:22are come in unto my soul. That phrase come in unto my
- 4:25soul. Spurgeon makes a really big deal
- 4:27about this distinction. He does.
- 4:29He contrasts it with a ship at sea.
- 4:31You can be in a storm, a hurricane, and the waves can be
- 4:34fifty, 100 feet high. As long as the water is outside
- 4:37the ship, you're relatively safe.
- 4:39You're being tossed about, but you're afloat.
- 4:41But here. Here the water is broken into
- 4:43the hold. The water is inside.
- 4:45The crisis is internal. So this isn't just about bodily
- 4:47pain. That's not the first complaint.
- 4:49No, bodily anguish isn't the first complaint.
- 4:52The first complaint is that the sorrows have penetrated his
- 4:55inner nature, his soul. This connects directly to the
- 4:58Reformed understanding of Christ's suffering.
- 5:01It wasn't just that the Romans whipped him or nailed Him to a
- 5:04cross. It was at the wrath of God.
- 5:06The sorrow for our sin was flooding his very soul.
- 5:10Spurgeon makes a comparison here to Jonah.
- 5:12Yes, a greater Jonah. Jonah cried from the depth of
- 5:15the sea. The waters compassed me about
- 5:17even to the soul. Christ is the greater Jonah.
- 5:20He went down to the bottoms of the mountains.
- 5:22He did business for us in the great waters, a business of
- 5:26salvation. Then in verse 2, the metaphor
- 5:28shifts a bit from water to mud. I sink in Deepmire where there
- 5:32is no standing. And that's an even more
- 5:34terrifying sensation, I think. If you're in deep water, at
- 5:36least you might be able to swim to tread water.
- 5:39But in Deepmire, struggling only makes you sink faster.
- 5:42There's no foothold, there's nothing solid beneath you.
- 5:44It just sucks you down. Sucks you down, and Spurgeon
- 5:47points out that this represents the clinging, suffocating nature
- 5:51of sin. And we have to remember Christ
- 5:53is pure sin, is utter filth to him.
- 5:56Exactly. For His holy soul to be immersed
- 5:59in the mire of our iniquity imputed to Him, it must have
- 6:03been more agonizing than the physical crucifixion itself.
- 6:06He was loathing the connection to sin that was necessary for
- 6:09expiation. He was standing in the dismal
- 6:11swamp that we were born into. And he had no standing, no
- 6:14support. Everything gave way under him.
- 6:16The law offered no support because he was made sin for us.
- 6:19His friends deserted him. The Father's face was hidden.
- 6:22He was sinking, utterly alone. Verse 3 moves from that
- 6:26spiritual agony to the physical toll it's taking.
- 6:28I am weary of my crying. My throat is dried.
- 6:31My eyes fail while I wait for my God.
- 6:34This just shows the true, unvarnished humanity of Jesus.
- 6:38He wasn't a phantom. He wasn't some stoic God just
- 6:41pretending to suffer. He prayed until he was
- 6:43physically utterly exhausted. Spurgeon's description of his
- 6:46prayers is intense. He says his prayers were salted
- 6:49with fire. They were hot with agony, so
- 6:51fervent that they literally scorched his throat.
- 6:53Throat is dried. That's such a visceral detail.
- 6:56It is. You can almost feel it, he
- 6:58pleaded with such awful fervor that it parched him from the
- 7:01inside out. And then think about the eyes.
- 7:06My eyes fail from watching, from watching and waiting for a
- 7:09deliverance that did not come immediately.
- 7:12He kept looking up, expecting help, and the strain was so
- 7:15immense his vision began to blur and fail.
- 7:18Spurgeon has a lovely note here. He says no painter can depict
- 7:21those eyes. That's interesting.
- 7:22We see paintings of Jesus with a Halo or looking serene, or maybe
- 7:26with a single noble tear. But can you paint eyes that have
- 7:29failed from weeping and watching?
- 7:32Eyes that are red and dim and swollen from the sheer strain of
- 7:35looking for God in the darkness. It really grounds the theology
- 7:38in a person. This isn't just an abstract
- 7:40transaction happening, this is a real person suffering.
- 7:42A real person. And then verse 4 we get the
- 7:44cause, or rather the the lack of a 'cause they that hate me
- 7:48without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head.
- 7:51Without a cause. I mean, that's the logic of
- 7:53hatred against God is that it's irrational.
- 7:55Completely. What had he done to them?
- 7:57Nothing. He had healed their sick, he
- 7:59raised their dead. He taught them the truth.
- 8:01He hadn't injured any man or blasphemed God.
- 8:04And yet look at the coalition against him Spurs and lists them
- 8:07out. Civilians, Military, layics,
- 8:10Clerics, Drunkards, Princess the.
- 8:11Whole world, the whole. World banded together to destroy
- 8:14him. And yet right in the middle of
- 8:16this verse, there's this massive, massive theological
- 8:19statement. It just explodes off the page.
- 8:21Then I restored that which I took not away.
- 8:24Spurgeon absolutely loves this line.
- 8:26Let's unpack it a bit. This is the heart of the
- 8:28atonement. It's the core of substitution.
- 8:31Think about it, Who took away the glory of God?
- 8:34Man did Adam us. Right.
- 8:36We took away God's glory by our disobedience.
- 8:39We took away our own righteousness.
- 8:40We took away your own happiness and peace with God.
- 8:43We are the thieves, Christ. Christ took nothing.
- 8:46He never robbed God of an ounce of glory.
- 8:48He never sinned. He never broke fellowship.
- 8:51And yet he is the one who restores it all.
- 8:53The innocent pays the debt for the guilty.
- 8:55That is it. He restores the honor of God's
- 8:58law that he did not steal. He restores the righteousness to
- 9:01man that he did not forfeit. It is the great exchange, as
- 9:05Spurgeon puts it. The sheep go astray, but the
- 9:08wanderings are laid at the shepherd's door.
- 9:10Wow. And that brings us to Section 2.
- 9:13And this is the well, it's the interpretive hurdle I mentioned
- 9:16earlier, verse 5. Oh God, thou knowest my
- 9:19foolishness and my sins are not hid from Thee.
- 9:23Now if I'm reading this as a Messianic Psalm, as Christ
- 9:26speaking, I hit a wall. Christ is sinless.
- 9:29He is the wisdom of God. How on earth can he say thou
- 9:33knowest my foolishness? It's the great interpretive
- 9:35challenge of this Psalm, no question.
- 9:37And Spurgeon offers a few ways to look at this.
- 9:39The 1st, and maybe the simplest, is to say this is David speaking
- 9:42purely for himself. Just David being David.
- 9:44Right. David was a Sinner.
- 9:45He had plenty foolishness to confess.
- 9:47We know that. So on one level, the type is
- 9:49just speaking for himself. Sure, that makes sense.
- 9:50But if we're committed to seeing Christ here, which the rest of
- 9:54the Psalm really demands that we do, we have to look deeper.
- 9:58Spurgeon suggests. This could be an appeal
- 10:01regarding the imputation of sin. OK, how does that work?
- 10:04Think of it as Christ saying something like, Lord, you know
- 10:07if I am truly foolish or guilty, you know the truth of my nature.
- 10:11It's an appeal to God's omniscience against all the
- 10:14false accusations of men. So it's like men call me a
- 10:17blasphemer, they call me mad, but you know my heart.
- 10:21Exactly, you know, if this foolishness is inherent in me or
- 10:24if it's just what the world is throwing at me.
- 10:26But Spurgeon goes even further. And this is where the Reformed
- 10:29theology comes in really strong, especially with the second-half
- 10:31of the verse. My sins are not hid from thee,
- 10:34right? If Christ is bearing the sins of
- 10:37his people, then in a legal, federal sense, those sins are
- 10:41His. Not that he committed them, but
- 10:44he is now responsible for them. He is the surety.
- 10:46He's the one who cosigned our debt.
- 10:48So when he stands before the judgement seat of God.
- 10:51Our sins are on His shoulders. They are not hid.
- 10:54He's not trying to conceal them. He is standing openly as the
- 10:58substitute, bearing the full weight of our foolishness and
- 11:02our sin before the Father. So he's confessing the sins that
- 11:05he's caring for us. He's identifying so closely with
- 11:08his people that he speaks of their foolishness as his burden.
- 11:12It's an incredible act of solidarity, and Spurgeon has
- 11:14this beautiful insight on this. He says he who can say Thou
- 11:18knowest my foolishness is the only man who can add, but thou
- 11:21knowest that I love thee. Because that kind of transparent
- 11:24confession is what opens the way for that deep relationship.
- 11:27Right. It's only when we're honest
- 11:29about the sin, or in Christ's case, honest about the burden of
- 11:31sin He carries, that the profession of love stands on
- 11:35solid ground. Let's move to Section 3, then
- 11:38verses 7 through 12. We see this theme of
- 11:40estrangement in zeal come to the forefront.
- 11:42And verse 8 is just heartbreaking.
- 11:44I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my
- 11:47mother's children. The distinction there is so
- 11:50important culturally. In a polygamous society like
- 11:53David's, you had many half siblings.
- 11:56Father's children might not be that close, but mother's
- 12:00children? Those who nurse at the same
- 12:02breast, that is the closest family tie imaginable.
- 12:06And even they rejected him, the closest of the close.
- 12:10We see this played out in the Gospels, don't we?
- 12:12His own brothers did not believe in him.
- 12:14They thought he was, you know, beside himself.
- 12:16Crazy. Spurgeon notes the deep, deep
- 12:18emotional pain of this. It's one thing to be hated by
- 12:21the Romans, of the Pharisees. It's a whole other thing to be
- 12:23an alien at your own mother's dinner table.
- 12:25And what's the reason for this rejection?
- 12:27Verse 9 gives the answer for the zeal of buying house have eaten
- 12:30me up. This is one of those verses that
- 12:33the disciples remember specifically right after he
- 12:35cleansed the temple. They remember this verse was
- 12:37written about him. It's such a powerful metaphor of
- 12:39zeal eating him up. It is.
- 12:41It's like a fire. If a candle burns bright, what
- 12:43happens? It consumes the wax.
- 12:46Christ was consumed by his passion for God's glory, for the
- 12:49purity of God's house. It used him up.
- 12:52It wore him out. Spurgeon draws a sharp contrast
- 12:55between this kind of zeal and how the world views it.
- 12:58Oh. Absolutely.
- 12:59The world hates it. If you are zealous for money,
- 13:01they call you industrious. If you're zealous for science or
- 13:04art, they call you dedicated. But if you're zealous for God.
- 13:07You're a fanatic, a madman. Exactly.
- 13:10You're unbalanced. You're dangerous.
- 13:12Scurgeon has a great line. He says When Zeal eats a
- 13:14believer up, the ungodly, then try to eat the believer up, they
- 13:17just can't stand it. It convicts them.
- 13:19And then the verse continues, And their approach of them that
- 13:21reproach thee are fallen upon me.
- 13:23This is Christ as the the great buffer, the lightning ride.
- 13:27The world wants to attack God. They hate His Holiness, His
- 13:30sovereignty, but they can't physically hit God.
- 13:34He's in heaven. So who do they?
- 13:36Hit they hit his son, the one who represents him on.
- 13:39Earth. They hit the one who is the
- 13:40perfect image of Him. Every blow, every insult, every
- 13:44piece of blasphemy that was intended for the Father, it fell
- 13:47on the Son. He stood in the gap and took the
- 13:49hits for God. And look where this leads him.
- 13:51I mean the depths of humiliation here.
- 13:54Verse 12. I was the song of the drunkard.
- 13:56This is just the humiliation of the holiest of holies.
- 13:59Spurgeon paints this vivid, almost unbearable contrast.
- 14:03In heaven, the seraphim cover their faces with their wings
- 14:06when they cry Holy, holy, holy. And on earth.
- 14:09On Earth, the town drunks are sitting around a filthy table
- 14:12making up dirty rhymes about him in the Tavern.
- 14:16It puts the doctrine of the humiliation of Christ into very
- 14:18sharp, painful focus. It isn't just that he died, it's
- 14:21that he became a joke. A Tavern jest and it was total
- 14:25societal rejection. The verse mentions those who sit
- 14:29in the gate, That's the judges, the magistrates, the respectable
- 14:31people, the town council, and it also mentions the drunkards.
- 14:35From the top of society to the very bottom.
- 14:37Total rejection. OK, moving into Section 4,
- 14:40verses 13 through 21, we hear the cry from the pit.
- 14:43But verse 13 starts with a but. But As for me, my prayer is unto
- 14:46thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time.
- 14:48That's the pivot, isn't it? The world is mocking, but he is
- 14:52praying. And notice that phrase in an
- 14:54acceptable time. Which seems strange, right?
- 14:56It doesn't seem like a very acceptable time.
- 14:58He's suffering horribly. It was a time of rejection with
- 15:01man, but it was a time of acceptance with God.
- 15:04This is the moment of the great sacrifice.
- 15:06This is the moment the eternal covenant is being fulfilled.
- 15:09So even in the darkest hour of human history, the channel to
- 15:12the Father was open for the accomplishment of this specific
- 15:16work. In that verse, Spurgeon also
- 15:18zeroes in on the phrase multitude of mercy.
- 15:21Yes, the psalmist pleads in the multitude of thy mercy.
- 15:25And Spurgeon says we should learn from this.
- 15:27We should use God's own nature as an argument in prayer.
- 15:31When you are in a corner, when you've sinned, you don't plead
- 15:34your own goodness. That's a losing argument.
- 15:36You plead his goodness. You plead God's character, you
- 15:38go into the treasury of his attributes, and you say, Lord,
- 15:41save me, not because I am good, but because you are merciful.
- 15:45You have a multitude of mercy. That is a strong reason it is.
- 15:49Now we come to a verse that is just staggering.
- 15:53Verse 20. Reproach hath broken my heart.
- 15:56This is where Spurgeon brings in this fascinating piece of
- 15:58medical and historical insight. He cites A physician, Sir James
- 16:01Young Simpson. Right regarding the physical
- 16:04cause of Christ's death. We know the crucifixion was
- 16:06brutal, but the text doesn't say the nails have broken my body.
- 16:11It says reproach had broken my heart.
- 16:14Simpson and other physicians have argued that Christ's death
- 16:17was ultimately caused by a literal rupture of the heart
- 16:20muscle. A literal broken heart A.
- 16:22Literal broken heart brought on by the immense unbearable mental
- 16:26and spiritual agony and stress. The sorrow was so great it
- 16:30physically tore his vital organ. That gives a whole new weight to
- 16:33that common phrase. He died of a broken heart.
- 16:36It. Does and the evidence from the
- 16:38Gospel account. The blood and water flowing from
- 16:40his side when pierced by the spear would be consistent with
- 16:43the heart rupturing and blood collecting in the pericardial
- 16:45sack. It suggests that it wasn't just
- 16:47the nails that killed him, it was the weight of the woe.
- 16:51Unbelievable. And the verse continues.
- 16:53I look for some to take pity, but there was none.
- 16:56Gethsemane. Absolutely Gethsemane.
- 16:58He goes to Peter, James and John, his inner circle.
- 17:01Could you not watch with me one hour?
- 17:04He runs backward and forward-looking for just one
- 17:06sympathetic face in the darkness.
- 17:08Then he finds them asleep. He finds them asleep.
- 17:11He was absolutely, completely alone.
- 17:13The sufferer had no comforter. And then the final insult in
- 17:17this section, verse 21. They gave me also gall for my
- 17:21meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
- 17:25A specific prophecy fulfilled to the letter.
- 17:28We see it right there in the Gospels.
- 17:30We do, and Spurgeon really notes the calculated cruelty of it.
- 17:34A man is dying, he is thirsty. It is one of the most basic,
- 17:38desperate human needs. And what is the only refreshment
- 17:41they offer him? Gall and vinegar mockery in a
- 17:44cup. There's a historical note that
- 17:46Roman soldiers sometimes gave a sour wine mixed with myrrh to
- 17:50condemn criminals to deaden the pain, a small, rough act of
- 17:53mercy. But here, the text specifically
- 17:56links it with gall, with bitterness.
- 17:58It implies it wasn't meant to help.
- 17:59It was meant to embitter to make the suffering sharp right to the
- 18:02very end. And Spurgeon, he doesn't let us
- 18:04off the hook here, He applies this directly to us.
- 18:06He does. He says we like to stand back
- 18:08and blame the Jews or the Roman soldiers, but he says our sins
- 18:11fill that cup every time we thin.
- 18:13We are essentially mixing that gall and offering that vinegar
- 18:16to the dying Savior. That is a heavy thought, and it
- 18:19leads us directly into what is, I think, perhaps the most
- 18:22difficult part of the Psalm for modern Raiders.
- 18:25Section 5. Verses 22 through 28.
- 18:28The Imprecations. The curses, yes.
- 18:30It's a really jarring shift in tone we go from I looked for
- 18:34pity, but there was none to let their table become a snare, let
- 18:39their eyes be darkened, add iniquity onto their iniquity,
- 18:42let them be blotted out. It sounds, well, it sounds
- 18:45vengeful. It does sound vengeful to our
- 18:47modern ears if we read it as personal malice.
- 18:50Yeah, this is just David getting mad at some guy named Cushing.
- 18:52It's very problematic, but Spurgeon in the whole Reformed
- 18:55tradition teach us to read this in a different light.
- 18:58These are not personal wishes for revenge.
- 19:00These are judicial prophecies. OK, explain that.
- 19:02What's a judicial prophecy? Christ is the sufferer, yes, but
- 19:06He is also the Judge of all the earth.
- 19:08These verses are not a temper tantrum from the cross.
- 19:11They are a divine judicial pronouncement of the inevitable
- 19:15consequences of rejecting God's anointed king.
- 19:17When you reject the cornerstone, you will be freshed by it.
- 19:21These verses are simply describing what that crushing
- 19:23looks like. And the apostle Paul actually
- 19:25quotes these verses in Romans 11.
- 19:28He does. He applies them directly to the
- 19:30nation of Israel for rejecting Christ, he says.
- 19:32And David says, let their table be made a snare and a trap.
- 19:37So the New Testament itself interprets these not as angry
- 19:40wishes, but as prophetic words about the judgement that falls
- 19:44on hardened unbelief. Let's look at that specific
- 19:47metaphor. Let their table become a snare.
- 19:51That's a terrifying concept. It is the table represents your
- 19:55daily bread, your prosperity, your security, your religious
- 19:58feasts, your friendships, your comfort.
- 20:00All the good things in. Life, the good things, and the
- 20:03curse is that these very good things become the trap.
- 20:06How does that happen? How can a blessing become a
- 20:08curse? It happens when you become so
- 20:10comfortable, so well fed, so secure in your material or even
- 20:14your religious life that you feel no need for God Himself.
- 20:17Your table has become a snare. Your blessing has become a
- 20:20curse. You are trapped by your own
- 20:21prosperity, blinded by your own comfort.
- 20:24Spurgeon also points to a very literal historical fulfillment
- 20:28of this. He does, and it's quite
- 20:30chilling. In 70 AD, when the Roman legions
- 20:34under Titus besieged Jerusalem, the Jews had all gathered in the
- 20:38city for the Passover. They were gathered for a feast
- 20:41for their most sacred table. They were at their table, and
- 20:44that very gathering became the snare that trapped hundreds of
- 20:48thousands inside the city for the brutal siege and destruction
- 20:51that followed. They were caught, quite
- 20:54literally, at their own feast. That is chilling.
- 20:57It's a picture of the severity of God's judgment on those who
- 21:00reject the Son. Then we get to verse 28, and
- 21:02this is another one that raises a big theological red flag for a
- 21:05lot of people. Let them be blotted out of the
- 21:07book of the living right now. If we believe in the
- 21:10perseverance of the Saints, the P in Tulip, the idea that if you
- 21:14are truly saved, you cannot lose your salvation, well, how can
- 21:18someone be blotted out of the book of life?
- 21:20It's a classic dilemma. It sounds like you can lose your
- 21:22salvation, but Reformed theology has a very clear answer for
- 21:26this, and Spurgeon articulates it well.
- 21:28And what is that answer we have? To make a distinction between
- 21:32the Book of the Living as a, say, a human record or a role of
- 21:35outward profession, and the eternal Lamb's Book of Life,
- 21:39which contains the names of the elect from before the foundation
- 21:42of the world. So there are two different books
- 21:45or two different ways of looking at the book.
- 21:47Think of it this way. In the Old Testament, to be
- 21:50written in the book of the living often meant you were on
- 21:53the census roll. You are a citizen of Israel.
- 21:56You're physically alive and part of the visible community of
- 21:59God's people. To be blotted out meant you died
- 22:03or were excommunicated, cut off from the people.
- 22:06OK, that makes sense for an earthly record.
- 22:08So Spurgeon, quoting other theologians like Thomas Adams,
- 22:12suggests that the people being talked about here were written
- 22:15down according to their own hope or by human opinion.
- 22:19They call themselves God's people.
- 22:21They were on the church roll, so to speak.
- 22:24They had a name that they were alive, but they were dead.
- 22:26But they weren't truly known by God from eternity.
- 22:29Exactly. God's eternal decree of election
- 22:31is unchangeable. As Paul says, the Lord knows
- 22:35those who are His. But from a human perspective,
- 22:38from the view on the ground, there are people who seem to be
- 22:41in the book. They preach, they prophecy, they
- 22:43eat at the Lord's Table, but they are not truly His.
- 22:47So when the verse says blotted out.
- 22:50It means it becomes manifest to everyone that they were never
- 22:53truly there in the 1st place. Their false profession is
- 22:55exposed. It's a principle we see in first
- 22:58John 2.1 mine. They went out from us, but they
- 23:01were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have
- 23:03continued with us. Being blotted out is the public
- 23:07removal of a false name from the role.
- 23:09It's a terrifying thought that you can write your own name in
- 23:11the book, but God didn't hold the pen.
- 23:13That's a great way to put it. It's a sober, sober warning.
- 23:16It removes all room for a casual or presumptuous faith.
- 23:19Thankfully, the Psalm doesn't end in that dark place of
- 23:21judgement. We move to the final section.
- 23:23Section 6 and verse 29 begins with but, but I am poor and
- 23:27sorrowful. Let thy salvation, O God, set me
- 23:30up on high. Here's the great turn, the
- 23:32resurrection, The Ascension. The path to being set up on high
- 23:37begins with being poor and sorrowful.
- 23:39The way up is down. Always in the Kingdom of God,
- 23:43Christ humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a
- 23:46cross. Therefore God highly exalted
- 23:48Him. Spurgeon makes this connection
- 23:50directly to the listener. If you feel poor, if you feel
- 23:53sorrowful, if you feel trodden down like the mire we talked
- 23:55about the beginning, take heart. You're in the company of Christ.
- 23:58That is the starting point for glory.
- 24:00And then the response is worship.
- 24:03Verses 30 and 31. I will praise the name of God
- 24:06with a song. This also shall please the Lord
- 24:09better than an ox or Bullock that hath horns and hoofs.
- 24:12You can almost hear a Spurgeon chuckling as he writes about
- 24:14this. He loves this little detail.
- 24:16Horns and hoofs. What's the point he's making
- 24:18there? It's a brilliant, almost
- 24:19sarcastic jab at empty ritualism.
- 24:23If you offer a bullet to God under the Old Covenant, what are
- 24:27you offering? A beast?
- 24:29And the horns in the hoofs are the inedible parts, the awful,
- 24:31the waste. Spurgeon is saying that God
- 24:34doesn't care about the horns and hoofs of your ceremonies.
- 24:37He doesn't care about the external trappings, the smoke
- 24:40and smells if the heart isn't there.
- 24:41He wants the heart. He wants the.
- 24:43Song He wants Thanksgiving, He wants spiritual worship.
- 24:46The shift here is from the Levitical animal sacrifice to
- 24:49the sacrifice of praise. Bottom.
- 24:51The idea that the near external work does something is nothing
- 24:55to God without the heart behind it.
- 24:56It's the difference between a. Dead ox and a living song.
- 24:59That's it, beautifully. Put and finally the Psalm.
- 25:02Just broadens out from the individual sufferer to a whole
- 25:05community. Verse 35 For God will save Zion,
- 25:08and will build the cities of Judah.
- 25:09It moves from the sufferer. To the seed, to the church.
- 25:12To the church. Because Christ suffered, Zion is
- 25:16saved. Because he sank in the mire, the
- 25:19cities of Judah are built. This is the Reformed view of the
- 25:23success of the gospel. It isn't just a potential
- 25:25salvation offered to everyone. It's an accomplished work that
- 25:28actually secures a people for God, the seed of His servants.
- 25:32Shall inherit it. That's us.
- 25:34If we were in Christ, we have the seed, we are the servants,
- 25:37we inherit the blessing that he purchased with all of his
- 25:40sorrow. It's just an amazing.
- 25:41Trajectory, when you look at it from start to finish, we started
- 25:45in the deep mire where there was no standing.
- 25:47We went through the drunkard song and the breaking heart.
- 25:49We face the terrifying snare of the table and we end up here in
- 25:53the restored cities of Judah with a song of praise on our
- 25:56lips. It's a whole gospel story.
- 25:57In a single song from Gethsemane to glory and what fascinates me.
- 26:01Is how Spurgeon, throughout his commentary, keeps us tethered to
- 26:04the fact that this is all for us, the sufferers.
- 26:07Agony is the believers security. That's the great comfort of it.
- 26:11He went through the mire so we wouldn't have to drown in it for
- 26:14eternity. He drank the cup of vinegar so
- 26:16that we could drink the new wine of the Kingdom before we wrap
- 26:19up. I want.
- 26:20To leave our listeners with something to to chew on from
- 26:23this, we talked about that haunting concept of the table as
- 26:26a snare. Yes, A.
- 26:28Very sobering idea it is so I want to.
- 26:30Ask you, the listener, Look at your table.
- 26:32Look at your life, your comfort, your job, your family, your
- 26:36routine. Is it possible that your
- 26:39blessings are blinding you? It's the great danger of the.
- 26:42Good life, isn't it? When things are going well, when
- 26:45the table is full, we tend to drift.
- 26:47We forget the mire, we forget the cost.
- 26:50Are you so satisfied with your? Table that you've lost your
- 26:52appetite for the host who provides it.
- 26:54And that other question from verse 28.
- 26:57Is your name written in the book of life by the very hand of God
- 27:00or have you just penciled it in yourself based on the fact that
- 27:03you have a nice table and you go to church?
- 27:05That's the question we all have. To face make your calling and
- 27:08election sure. Don't rest on the table, rest on
- 27:11the Savior who is broken for you.
- 27:13On that note. We are going to close the
- 27:16treasury of David for today. Thank you so much for diving
- 27:20deep with us. It has been a pleasure, this.
- 27:22Has been reformed thinking. We will see you next time.