Latest / Reformed Thinking / Faith That Grows Old Without Growing Weak (Psalm 71) | Charles Spurgeon

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Faith That Grows Old Without Growing Weak (Psalm 71) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  We are thrilled to have you with us again.
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  Today. We are cracking open a text that
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  really acts as a kind of survival manual for anyone who
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  plans on getting older, which I assume is every single person
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  listening. We are looking at a specific
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  Psalm that tackles the fears of decline, of irrelevance, but
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  we're doing it through the lens that, you know, this show is
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  known for. That's right.
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  Our whole mandate here is to look at these incredible
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  historical treasures of the faith, but always, always
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  viewing them through a reformed lens.
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  We want to see how the doctrines of grace and the sovereignty of
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  God actually apply to the, you know, the pavement of our daily
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  lives. We're not really interested in
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  history for history's sake. We want to know how to walk the
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  walk today. And our focus for this session
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  is Psalm 71. If you have your Bible nearby,
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  go ahead and flip there. And as soon as you look at the
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  text, you might notice something is oh, it's missing right at the
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  top. Yeah, it's what scholars
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  sometimes call an orphan Psalm. In the original Hebrew text,
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  there's No title. Usually you see something like a
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  Psalm of David or for the choir director on stringed
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  instruments. Here, there's nothing.
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  It just begins. That is unusual, isn't it?
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  I mean, most of the time we get at least a little context clue,
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  like David when he was fleeing from Absalom or something like
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  that. And because of that silence,
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  there has been a lot of guessing over the centuries.
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  I know some older commentary suggests that maybe Psalm 70 is
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  a kind of prelude to this one, or that they were originally 1
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  long song that got snapped in half.
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  You do see that theory quite a bit.
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  But for our discussion today, we're leaning very heavily on
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  Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David.
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  And I mean, Spurgeon is really the gold standard for commentary
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  on the Psalms. He's actually quite dismissive
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  of that fragment theory. He treats Psalm 71 as a complete
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  stand alone architectural work. He argues it has its own
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  distinct arc and its own structure.
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  And Spurgeon gives it a title that I think frames our
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  discussion just perfectly. He calls it the Prayer of the
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  Aged Believer. It is such a fitting title.
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  It sets the stage immediately. This is not the prayer of the
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  young warrior swinging a sling of the giant.
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  This is the utterance of a faith that is struggling against a
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  failing body, yet it remains, as bridge and puts it, unstaggering
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  I'm. Staggering.
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  I like that word. So even though the text is
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  technically anonymous, the consensus and certainly the view
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  we're taking today is that the author is David, but it's not
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  the young, ready David we see in First Samuel, No.
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  Not at all. We're looking at David at his
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  extreme old age. You should picture the David we
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  see in First Kings chapter 1. He's physically cold.
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  They can't even get him warm with blankets.
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  His body is failing him. This was likely written during
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  the Rebellion of Adonijah, or perhaps in the immediate, you
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  know, the shattering aftermath of Absalom's Rebellion.
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  So he's vulnerable. The enemies are circling because
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  they can smell blood in the water.
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  Precisely. He is physically weaker, and in
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  the ancient Near East, when the king gets weak, the hyenas start
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  to laugh. He can't fight his way out of
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  this one with a sword. That is a terrifying place to
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  be. You know, we have listeners of
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  all ages, but even if you're 20 years old, you have parents or
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  you simply know that this day is coming for you.
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  The mission of this deep dive really is to figure out how a
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  believer faces that triple threat.
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  The weakness of age, the threat of enemies, and the crushing
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  realization that you need God's righteousness because your own
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  is well, it's fading. Away.
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  That is the absolute core of it. We need to see how the doctrines
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  of grace hold up when the body is falling apart.
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  So let's get into the text. We can divide this Psalm into a
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  few segments. We'll start with the 1st 4
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  verses, which we are calling the Fortress of Righteousness.
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  OK, so verse one starts with a classic declaration in the O
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  Lord, do I put my trust. It sounds standard, but then he
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  adds this line, Let me never be put to confusion.
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  And Spurgeon points out that there's a specific heavy fear
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  attached to that word confusion. We really need to unpack that
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  word because to a modern ear confusion just sounds like you
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  forgot where you put your car keys.
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  Right. A little disoriented, yeah.
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  But in the Hebrew mindset, and certainly in the way Spurgeon
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  interprets it, this is about shame.
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  It's about a deep public theological crisis.
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  OK, so how does that work? Why is it theological?
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  Well, imagine you have spent 70 years telling everyone that your
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  God is faithful. You have told your family, your
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  soldiers, your entire Kingdom that Yahweh protects his own.
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  You've built your entire identity and your public
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  reputation on the reliability of God.
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  If at the very end of your life you are abandoned, if the enemy
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  triumphs over you and you die in disgrace, it's not just that you
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  lost a battle, it implies that your God failed.
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  So the confusion is that the believer looks like a fool for
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  trusting and God looks like a liar for not showing up.
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  Exactly. That's it.
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  It's the crisis that occurs if a believer who has put their trust
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  in God is left unsupported. He is praying.
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  Lord, do not let my life become a counter argument to your
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  faithfulness. Wow.
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  That leads directly into verse 2, which I think is the
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  theological anchor of this entire first section.
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  Deliver me in my righteousness. This is so critical.
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  This is where the Reformed lens clarifies everything.
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  Notice what he does not say. He does not say deliver me
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  because I have been a good king. He doesn't say deliver me
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  because I wrote the 23rd Psalm. No, he pleads God's
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  righteousness. Right.
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  And thank God for that, because if we had to rely on our own
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  righteousness, we would be in, well, big trouble.
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  Spurgeon points out that even the best St. at the end of their
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  life looks back and sees a long list of flaws and failures.
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  We cannot stand on our own record, but David pleads God's
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  righteousness, and in this context he refers to God's
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  faithfulness to his own character, to his promises.
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  So it's the idea that God is bound by his own veracity, yes.
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  That's a great way to put it. God cannot lie.
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  If God makes a promise to save those who trust him, it would be
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  unrighteous of God to break that promise.
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  So when David says deliver me in thy righteousness, he's
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  essentially saying, God be who you said you are.
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  You promised to save. I am trusting.
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  Therefore, your own nature compels you to rescue me.
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  That is a much, much stronger plea than God.
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  I tried my best. It shifts the entire burden of
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  salvation off of David's weak shoulders and onto God's
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  infinite shoulders. Oh, infinite degree stronger.
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  Spurgeon has this beautiful image here of the wounded man.
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  He described the psalmist asking God to incline his ear, and you
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  have to ask why. It's because the man is so weak,
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  so beaten down, that he can only whisper.
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  He is asking God to stoop down, to get close, to hear those
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  faint whispers and bind up the wounds.
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  It's so intimate. It's not a formal court
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  petition. It's a wounded soldier on the
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  battlefield asking for a medic. And then in verse 3, the imagery
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  shifts from the battlefield medic to architecture.
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  Be thou my strong habitation. Or, as some translations put it,
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  a rock of habitation, a place to live that is also a fortress.
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  Yeah, and Spurgeon goes straight to the castle imagery here.
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  He says the believer needs a dwelling that is framed and
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  bulwarked. I just love that description.
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  We need a place that can sustain a long siege.
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  Because at this stage in David's life, it feels like a siege.
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  He's not going out to conquer, he's just trying to survive the
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  assault. But there is a detail in
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  Spurgeon's notes on this verse that I found absolutely
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  fascinating. He talks about the secret door.
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  Oh I marked that too. It completely changes the way
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  you view the fortress. It does.
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  Think about a castle under siege.
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  The portcullis is downed, the drawbridge is up, the walls are
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  thick stone. To the enemy outside, it's
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  impenetrable. But for the inhabitant, for the
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  one who belongs there, there is a secret door.
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  A way in that only the family knows about.
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  Exactly. And Spurgeon applies this to
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  prayer. The world might be shutting you
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  out. The circumstances might be
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  closing in on you like a vice, but there's always immediate
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  access to the master of the house.
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  You can retreat into God instantly through the door of
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  prayer at any time. And once you are inside, you're
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  safe. Spurgeon notes that the security
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  rests on the tower, not on the person hiding inside it.
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  That is a massive comfort. If I'm in a bunker, I do not
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  need to be bulletproof. The bunker needs to be
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  bulletproof. My trembling does not crack the
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  walls. My fear doesn't weaken the
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  foundation. Then comes this incredible
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  phrase in verse 3. Thou hast given commandment to
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  save me. This sounds like a military
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  order. It speaks directly to the
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  sovereignty of God. This is very, very reformed.
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  In its emphasis, it suggests that nature, Providence, and
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  even invisible spiritual forces are under direct orders.
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  They have received a command from headquarters.
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  Save David. And Spurgeon makes a very sharp
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  contrast here with David's own life.
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  Remember when David gave a commandment regarding Absalom?
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  Deal gently for my sake with the young man.
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  A direct order from the king. Exactly.
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  David the King gave a direct order to his top generals, Joab
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  and the others, to spare Absalom.
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  And what happened? Absalom was killed, Joab
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  completely ignored the order, or perhaps the chaos of battle just
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  overwrote it. The point is, David's command
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  failed. The most powerful human in the
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  land could not save the person he loved most.
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  But God's command. It compels obedience when God
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  commands salvation. Destruction cannot destroy us.
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  Famine cannot starve us, Spurgeon says.
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  We can laugh at both when God's mandate Shields us.
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  It is the difference between a human wish and a divine decree.
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  And moving to verse 4, we see exactly what he needs saving
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  from deliver me, Oh my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out
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  of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man we.
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  Should probably do a little word study here on that word cruel.
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  Right, Spurgeon points out that literally in the Hebrew it means
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  the leavened man. Leavened like bread.
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  It is such an odd description for a villain, isn't it?
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  But you have to think about what used or leaven actually does.
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  It ferments. It permeates everything it
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  touches. Right, it spreads through the
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  whole lump of dough. Exactly so 11 man is someone who
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  is thoroughly permeated with malice.
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  They are sour through and through.
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  So this is not a guy who is just having a bad day, this is
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  someone whose entire character is corrupted by evil.
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  Their cruelty isn't a mood, it's their nature.
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  It's who they are. And Spurgeon being Spurgeon,
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  gives us this vivid illustration of the power of prayer against
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  such men. He says praying to God does more
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  injury to your enemies. Then, and I'm quoting here, a
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  battery of Armstrong's. He's referring to the Armstrong
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  gun, right? The heavy artillery of his time.
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  Yes, exactly. It was the high tech weaponry of
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  the 19th century. I love that image.
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  You have these cruel, sour, powerful men attacking you.
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  You could try to fight them with a sword, but instead you pray
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  and Spurgeon says that is like calling in an airstrike.
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  It connects back to the two hands mentioned in the text.
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  The verse mentions the hand of the wicked.
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  That hand wants to grasp and crush.
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  But then there's the hand of God.
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  The prayer calls the hand of God to move, and the hand of God is
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  always, always stronger than the hand of the wicked.
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  So we have this fortress, this plea for righteousness, And now
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  in segment 2, the Psalm shifts gears.
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  We move from the immediate crisis to what we're calling the
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  retrospective grace. This covers verses 5 through 8.
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  And verse 5 says Thou art my trust for my youth.
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  This is a major reason why we believe David is the author.
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  He is looking back over a very long timeline.
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  He has a long memory, a long history with God.
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  He does. He's reflecting on a history of
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  proving God's faithfulness. He is likely thinking about the
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  lion, the bear, Goliath. Back when he was just a ready
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  kid. He was and there is immense
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  value in early piety, Spurgeon mentioned.
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  Samuel, Josiah, Timothy. There was something special
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  about a trust that has roots going all the way back to
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  childhood. It provides a kind of structural
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  stability in old age that is hard to manufacture if you're
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  just starting out late in life. But I want to pause on the
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  phrasing here. He doesn't just say I have hoped
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  in you, he says, Thou art my hope.
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  That is a key theological distinction, a really important
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  one. God is not just the object of
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  our hope. Like a prize we hope to get at
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  the end. God is the hope itself.
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  It echoes Colossians 1.27. Christ in you the hope of glory.
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  The hope is not a commodity God gives.
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  The hope is God himself present with us.
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  And he goes back even further. Verse 6 By thee have I been
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  holding up from the womb. This is where Spurgeon gets
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  almost biological. In his awe, he talks about the
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  miracle of birth. He calls it a mystery of mercy.
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  He does. He talks about God preserving
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  the embryo. It is so easy for us to take
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  birth for granted, but Spurgeon reminds us that the transition
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  from the womb to the world is a perilous, miraculous event, and
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  God overseas that entire transition.
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  And from a reformed perspective, this goes back even before the
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  womb, doesn't it? It does.
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  It touches on the doctrine of election, the elect of old.
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  As the old hymns say, we're lying in the bosom of God before
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  they were ever in their mothers bosoms.
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  So the physical birth is just the manifestation in time of an
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  eternal intent. It really changes how you view
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  your own life. You are not an accident.
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  You're not just a biological occurrence.
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  You are a project of God that has been sustained moment by
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  moment since before conception. And that leads to verse 7, which
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  contains a very strange phrase. I am as a wonder unto many.
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  A wonder. Now, in modern English, wonder
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  usually means something purely good, like oh, that's wonderful,
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  but that is not quite what he means here, is it?
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  No, not at all. The word implies a Riddle, a
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  puzzle, a prodigy. The Christian is a puzzle to the
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  ungodly world. And Spurgeon breaks this down
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  into a paradox. He says the believer has a dark
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  side and a bright side, right? To the world, the believer's
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  life often looks miserable. They suffer, they're persecuted.
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  They deny themselves the so-called delights of the flesh
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  that everyone else loves. They fight against their own
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  desires. To the secular mind, this looks
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  like a monster, something totally unnatural.
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  Why would you live like that? Why are you so gloomy?
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  But then there's the bright side.
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  The bright side is the solid hope, the joy in the mist of the
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  sorrow, the calm in the face of death.
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  That is the Riddle. The world looks at the Christian
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  and says, I don't get it, you should be miserable, but you're
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  hopeful. And the solution to the Riddle
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  is in the second-half of the verse.
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  Thou art my strong refuge. Exactly.
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  The Riddle is solved when you reveal the hidden source of
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  strength. We are a wonder because we are
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  powered by a battery the world cannot see.
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  I love that. And because of that hidden
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  power, we get verse 8, Let my mouth be filled with thy praise.
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  This version has a bit of wonderful humor.
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  Here he says. What a blessed mouthful.
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  It is a great phrase, isn't it? A flavor that never nauseates.
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  If God fills us with good, we should be filled with gratitude.
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  It is a simple equation, but now we have to turn the corner.
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  We have looked at the fortress and we have looked at the past.
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  Now we hit the hard reality of the present.
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  Segment 3. The Crisis of old Age, verses 9
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  through 13. Verse 9 is the heart cry of this
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  entire Psalm. I think cast me not off from the
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  time of old age. This is so raw.
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  We have to be honest about the reality of aging here, and
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  Spurgeon doesn't sugarcoat it at all.
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  He talks about the loss of personal beauty, the loss of
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  strength. And the loss of utility, that is
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  the one that hit so hard for people who've been active their
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  whole lives. You can no longer serve the way
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  you used to. You feel like you might be a
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  burden. And in the ancient world, and
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  frankly in the modern world too, there is a tendency for society
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  to discard what is no longer seen as useful Spurgeon.
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  Uses a biting comparison here. He talks about an ungrateful
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  country that stars its veterans. Or in malachite, master who
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  abandons A servant the moment he gets sick.
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  That is the way of the world. Use a person up, then cast them
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  off. And David Sphere is God.
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  Are you like that? Now that I can't fight Goliath
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  anymore, now that I can't lead the armies, are you done with
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  me? Forsake me not when my strength
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  faileth. It is the plea of the pensioner,
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  and the theological answer is so crucial.
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  God does not abandon His pensioners.
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  His relationship with us is not based on our utility, it is
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  based on His covenant. But the enemies they play on
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  this fear versus 10 and 11, God hath forsaken him.
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  This is the logic of the predator, Spurgeon says.
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  Dogs howl over a dying lion. That is such a visceral image.
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  The lion who used to roar and send them all scattering is now
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  lying there breathing heavy, and the dogs are creeping in.
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  And notice the weapon they use. It's not a sword, it's a
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  theological taunt. God has left him.
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  Spurgeon calls this the Barb shaft.
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  It is the worst arrow in Hell's quiver.
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  Why is it the worst? Because if it's true, you're
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  finished. If you are weak, that is one
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  thing. You can be weak and still have
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  God, but if God has left you, you are completely hopeless.
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  And remember, this was the exact same arrow fired at Christ on
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  the cross. He trusted in God, Let him
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  deliver him now, if he will have him.
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  So David is suffering a very Christ like affliction here,
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  that sense of abandonment, at least from the outside.
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  And the enemies are organized, the text says.
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  They take counsel together. They are unified in their
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  malice. Evil has its own kind of
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  fellowship. So how does David fight back
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  verse 12? Oh God, be not far from me.
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  It is the counter prayer. He combats the lie.
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  God has left you with a direct request for presence.
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  Be not far from me. I really like the analogy of the
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  child in the dark here. Yes, when a child is terrified
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  in the dark, what truly comforts them?
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  It's not necessarily the lights coming on.
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  It is the hand of the father. Grasping that hand provides
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  security even if the darkness remains.
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  David is grasping for God's hand.
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  And, he adds, make haste. There's an urgency.
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  Sharp sorrows and procrastination in prayer.
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  He doesn't have time for long flowery introductions.
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  He needs help now. And this leads to the
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  imprecation in verse 13. Let them be confounded.
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  Now I have to play the skeptic for a moment.
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  Modern listeners and even many Christians sometimes struggle
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  with these prayers for enemies to be destroyed.
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  It sounds harsh. Is it OK for a Christian to pray
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  for someone to be confounded? That is a completely valid
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  question, but we have to view this through a reformed
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  understanding of justice. It is not personal spite.
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  It is not David just saying I hate these guys and I want them
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  to suffer. It's an invocation of divine
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  justice. The result of God preserving the
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  Saint is by its very nature the confusion of the enemy.
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  So if they say God has left him and then God shows up and saves
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  him, they are proven to be liars.
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  Their whole premise is shattered.
• 18:20
  Exactly. They're confounded by the truth.
• 18:22
  Spurgeon uses historical parallels here.
• 18:24
  He mentions Pharaoh. Pharaoh tried to exterminate
• 18:27
  Israel, but the more he oppressed them, the more they
• 18:29
  multiplied. He was confounded.
• 18:30
  And the scribes and Pharisees. They tried to crush the gospel
• 18:34
  and it spread to the end of the earth.
• 18:35
  They were confounded. David is praying for that same
• 18:39
  kind of divine vindication. He's asking God to prove that He
• 18:42
  is faithful, which will as a consequence silence his enemies.
• 18:46
  So it's about the vindication of God's name, not just about
• 18:49
  David's personal comfort. Correct.
• 18:50
  It is a prayer for truth to win, for a reality to assert itself
• 18:54
  over the lies of the wicked. Now we come to what I think is
• 18:58
  the most beautiful turning point in the entire Psalm, Segment 4,
• 19:02
  the arithmetic of hope. I like that title, The
• 19:05
  Arithmetic of Hope. Verse 14 But I will hope
• 19:08
  continually. There was a great story in the
• 19:10
  notes from Savonarola that Spurgeon includes.
• 19:12
  Yes, Girolamo Savonarola, the Italian reformer.
• 19:16
  He has this personification of hope versus sorrow.
• 19:19
  It is a very dramatic scene. Sorrow marches in with an army,
• 19:22
  the den of arms, the shouting. Sorrow surrounds the believer
• 19:25
  and says look at the reality, you are besieged.
• 19:27
  God is not answering. Give up.
• 19:29
  And the believer is trembling. But then hope steps in.
• 19:33
  Hope smiles. That is the key difference.
• 19:36
  Sorrow is shouting, hope is smiling, and hope simply reminds
• 19:41
  the believer of God's existence. Hope says I will not leave you.
• 19:45
  And Spurgeon adds his own poetic touch to this.
• 19:47
  He says hope can live on a bare common and sing on a snow laden
• 19:51
  branch. Which means hope does not need a
• 19:54
  lush garden to survive. It is a winter bird, it can
• 19:58
  thrive in the bleakest conditions, and the resolution
• 20:00
  of verse 14 is just amazing. I will yet praise thee more and
• 20:04
  more. More and more, it's not just
• 20:07
  maintaining the status quo of praise, it's an increase.
• 20:10
  It's aggressive gratitude. If the enemy attacks more, I
• 20:12
  will praise more. It's a defiant act of worship.
• 20:15
  And then we get to the math in verse 15.
• 20:17
  I know not the numbers thereof. This is the aha moment for
• 20:20
  David. He's a man who is a capable
• 20:22
  administrator. He could count his troops, he
• 20:24
  could count the gold for the temple.
• 20:26
  But here he tries to count God's of righteousness and God's
• 20:28
  salvation, and he. Fails utterly.
• 20:31
  He. Fails completely.
• 20:32
  He basically says I can't do the math, the numbers are too big.
• 20:35
  It is so interesting because in other Psalms he could count his
• 20:38
  enemies. He said they were more than the
• 20:40
  hairs on his head. So the enemies are countable
• 20:43
  even if the number is high. But God's mercies are
• 20:47
  uncountable. That is the theological point.
• 20:51
  When truth surpasses numeration, we have to switch to admiration.
• 20:55
  We stop counting and start worshipping.
• 20:57
  Spurgeon uses a Latin term here that I love, Medulla theology.
• 21:01
  The marrow of theology. That is what Spurgeon calls this
• 21:03
  subject matter God's righteousness and salvation.
• 21:07
  It is the core, the nutrient rich center of the bone.
• 21:10
  It's the substance of our faith. And this leads us to verse 16,
• 21:14
  which is perhaps the most reformed verse in the whole
• 21:16
  Psalm. I will go in the strength of the
• 21:19
  Lord God. This is sola gratia grace alone
• 21:21
  in poetic form. I will make mention of thy
• 21:23
  righteousness, even of thine only.
• 21:26
  That word only is the line in the sand.
• 21:28
  It is the absolute rejection of all human righteousness.
• 21:31
  And Spurgeon gets very specific here.
• 21:33
  He mentions filthy rags echoing Isaiah.
• 21:36
  He does. He lists the things we try to
• 21:38
  rely on, our natural innocence, the dignity of our race, the
• 21:42
  power of sacraments, the infallibility of religious
• 21:45
  leaders. He just sweeps them all off the
• 21:46
  table. None of that counts.
• 21:48
  None of it. When you are facing death, or
• 21:50
  the cruel man, or the final judgment of God, you cannot walk
• 21:53
  in with your own resume. You have to walk in with the
• 21:56
  strength of the Lord God. You have to say I am here
• 21:58
  because of His righteousness and His alone.
• 22:00
  It's a resolution. I will go.
• 22:03
  I will go into battle, into my daily duty, or into death with
• 22:07
  only one weapon, God's strength. It is so liberating really.
• 22:11
  If I have to rely on my own strength, I'm constantly
• 22:13
  anxious. If I rely on his, I can be
• 22:16
  confident even when I'm weak. So David has secured his
• 22:19
  fortress. He has done the math and
• 22:21
  realized God's mercies are infinite.
• 22:23
  Now in segment 5, he looks at his job description, the duty of
• 22:26
  the grey headed verses 17 through 19.
• 22:28
  Verse 17 Thou has taught me from my youth.
• 22:31
  We are back to this idea of God as the constant instructor.
• 22:35
  And think about the curriculum David has been through.
• 22:37
  Spurgeon lists the teaching tools God used, the shepherd's
• 22:41
  crook, the King's scepter, the arrows of Jonathan, the javelin
• 22:45
  of Saul. That is quite an education, a
• 22:48
  very hands on one. It is he learned from the
• 22:50
  friendship of Jonathan and he learned from the betrayal of
• 22:53
  Absalom. God use every single bit of it
• 22:56
  to teach him something about himself.
• 22:58
  And Spurgeon calls for a sacred conservatism here.
• 23:01
  Now we need to be very clear. He is not talking about
• 23:04
  political conservatism. He is talking about holding fast
• 23:08
  to the old truths. He says we should refuse to give
• 23:11
  up the old lights for new trendy philosophies.
• 23:14
  If God taught you from your youth, and those lessons held up
• 23:17
  against Goliath and Saul and Absalom, why would you switch to
• 23:20
  a new philosophy in your old age?
• 23:21
  Exactly. Stick to the road you have
• 23:24
  tried, but there is a purpose for this sticking.
• 23:27
  It is not just stubbornness, it is for the sake of the next
• 23:29
  generation. That brings us to verse 18.
• 23:32
  Until I have showed thy strength unto this generation.
• 23:35
  This is the why. Why does God keep the aged
• 23:37
  believer alive? Why not just take them home to
• 23:40
  heaven when they get too weak to work?
• 23:41
  To be a witness, The aged believer has a specific mission
• 23:46
  to show God's power to the young.
• 23:49
  And Spurgeon uses the old oak analogy here.
• 23:52
  He contrasts two types of old professors, and by professors he
• 23:56
  means those who profess faith. First, there is the hollow oak.
• 24:00
  It stands there, looks big and impressive, but the center is
• 24:03
  rotten. It is just an empty shell.
• 24:05
  And then there is the fruit bearing tree.
• 24:07
  The one that even in old age is still producing the fruit might
• 24:11
  look different than it did in the spring, but it is there.
• 24:14
  And the specific content of this testimony is crucial.
• 24:17
  He wants to leave a record of God's power for everyone that is
• 24:21
  to come. It really challenges the modern
• 24:23
  view of retirement, doesn't it? We tend to think, I've done my
• 24:26
  time, I've worked for 40 years now I'll just rest.
• 24:29
  But David says no, I need to stay alive until I have told
• 24:31
  these kids what God can do. It reframes aging from a decline
• 24:35
  into a climax. The high point of your life
• 24:37
  isn't your peak earning years. It's the final years where you
• 24:41
  synthesize all that experience into a powerful testimony for
• 24:44
  the future. And the content of that
• 24:46
  testimony is the transcendence of God.
• 24:48
  Verse 19. Thy righteousness is very high.
• 24:52
  The height of the gospel. It lifts men from the gates of
• 24:55
  hell to the mansions of heaven. It's a righteousness that is
• 24:58
  beyond our reach but is given to us.
• 25:00
  And then that rhetorical question, Oh God, who is like
• 25:03
  unto thee? Spurgeon compares this to a
• 25:05
  traveler in the high Alps. You know that feeling when you
• 25:08
  stand at the base of a massive mountain range?
• 25:11
  You are just overwhelmed with awe.
• 25:12
  It silences you. That is how the believer feels
• 25:15
  when they survey God's mercy. It is vast, It is high, It is
• 25:19
  utterly incomparable. Moving on to segment 6,
• 25:21
  resurrection and revival, this is verses 20 and 21.
• 25:25
  Verse 20 is fascinating. Thou shalt quicken me again.
• 25:29
  Quicken meaning to make alive to vivify.
• 25:31
  Yes, and the imagery is so stark.
• 25:34
  Bring me up again from the depths of the earth.
• 25:36
  Now, literally, David is not dead yet.
• 25:38
  He's just in deep trouble. But he uses the language of the
• 25:41
  grave. He does.
• 25:42
  He feels like he's been buried by his troubles, but the
• 25:45
  inference of faith is this because God is great and high,
• 25:49
  as we just established in verse 19.
• 25:51
  He can say from the deepest troubles, even if I'm in the
• 25:54
  depths of the earth, you can pull me out.
• 25:57
  And Spurgeon, being a Christ centered preacher, connects this
• 26:00
  directly to Jesus. You cannot miss it.
• 26:02
  Ephesians chapter 4 talks about Christ descend into the lower
• 26:05
  parts of the earth and then ascending far above all heavens.
• 26:08
  David's prayer is a prophetic echo of Christ's resurrection.
• 26:12
  And because Christ rose, the believer knows they will rise
• 26:16
  to, whether from temporal trouble or from the actual
• 26:18
  grave. And verse 21 adds a kind of
• 26:20
  cherry on top. Thou shalt increase my
• 26:23
  greatness. Not just restore increase.
• 26:26
  That is such a bold thing to pray.
• 26:27
  He's an old man losing his power, and he asks for increased
• 26:30
  greatness. But in the Kingdom of God, that
• 26:32
  is often how it works. Look at Job.
• 26:35
  He had more at the end of his life than at the beginning.
• 26:37
  The resurrection body is greater than the natural body and he has
• 26:40
  to be comforted on every side. To be environed with
• 26:44
  consolation. Just as he was surrounded by
• 26:46
  enemies before, now he asks to be surrounded by comfort.
• 26:50
  It is a complete and total reversal of his situation,
• 26:52
  which? Brings us to the Grand finale
• 26:54
  Segment 7, the final Symphony, verses 22 through 24.
• 26:59
  We have the sultry and the harp. Now, we should probably pause
• 27:02
  here for a quick historical theology note.
• 27:05
  The Reformed tradition and Spurgeon himself often had a,
• 27:08
  let's say, complicated relationship with instrumental
• 27:11
  music and worship. Right.
• 27:13
  Some of the Puritans and early reformers saw instruments as
• 27:16
  part of the shadows of the law, like the temple sacrifices that
• 27:19
  were fulfilled in Christ. And so we're no longer
• 27:21
  necessary. Spurgeon sites Calvin and John
• 27:24
  Cotton here, who viewed these things as types and shadows that
• 27:28
  pointed to a greater reality. So are they saying we should not
• 27:31
  use guitars in church? Well, the point Spurgeon really
• 27:34
  emphasizes is not to get hung up on the wood in the strings, but
• 27:37
  on the spirit of the praise. Whether you use a harp or just
• 27:40
  your voice, the key is the intent and the heart behind it.
• 27:43
  And the title David uses here for God is Special Holy One of
• 27:47
  Israel. It is a rare title in the
• 27:49
  Psalms. It only appears three times, but
• 27:51
  it's used constantly in Isaiah. It's a lofty name.
• 27:54
  It emphasizes God's set apartness, His absolute purity.
• 27:58
  And then in verse 23, we get to the heart of the matter.
• 28:02
  My lips shall greatly rejoice, and my soul.
• 28:06
  This is the critical distinction between the hypocrite and the
• 28:09
  true believer. Go on.
• 28:10
  A hypocrite can praise with his lips, he can sing the right
• 28:13
  notes, he can say the right words, but the redeemed man
• 28:16
  praises with his soul. Spurgeon has a great turn of
• 28:19
  phrase here. Soul singing is the soul of
• 28:22
  singing. It is brilliant.
• 28:23
  Without the soul, the singing is just a dead performance.
• 28:26
  And what motivates the soul to sing?
• 28:29
  The next line tells us which A hast redeemed.
• 28:32
  So redemption is the turning of the instrument.
• 28:34
  Exactly. If you have not been redeemed,
• 28:36
  you're out of tune. You can't really sing this song.
• 28:39
  But if you have been bought with a price, your soul vibrates with
• 28:42
  the music of heaven. And finally, verse 24, my tongue
• 28:45
  also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long.
• 28:48
  The believer becomes an incessant talker.
• 28:50
  We all know people who cannot stop talking about their hobbies
• 28:54
  or their grandkids or politics, David says.
• 28:57
  I'm going to be that guy, but my subject is going to be God's
• 29:00
  righteousness. All the day long.
• 29:02
  It is an obsession, Yep, but a holy obsession.
• 29:06
  And notice the final state of the enemies, for they are
• 29:08
  confounded, for they are brought into shame.
• 29:11
  He. Speaks of it as an accomplished
• 29:12
  fact in the past tense. He does.
• 29:15
  The prayer started with a plea. Let me never be put with
• 29:17
  confusion. And it ends with a declaration.
• 29:20
  They are confounded. Faith treats the request as if
• 29:23
  it has already happened. The victory is won.
• 29:26
  The fortress held. The Levin man did not get in.
• 29:29
  So let's just zoom out and look at this whole arc.
• 29:32
  We started with a fragile man facing the confusion of shame,
• 29:35
  hiding in a fortress of God's character.
• 29:37
  We saw him look back at the miracle of his birth and his
• 29:40
  youth. We saw him face the brutal logic
• 29:42
  of his enemies who said God had left him.
• 29:44
  We saw him do the math and realize he couldn't even count
• 29:47
  God's mercies. We saw him accept his final
• 29:49
  mission to teach the next generation.
• 29:51
  And finally, we hear him singing with his soul, confident and
• 29:54
  redemption. It is a complete view of the
• 29:57
  Christian life compressed into one prayer, and the Reformed
• 30:01
  focus holds it all together. It is God's strength, God's
• 30:05
  righteousness, and God's commandment that saves.
• 30:08
  It is not David's endurance. It is God's fidelity.
• 30:11
  It really takes the pressure off, doesn't it, when you frame
• 30:14
  it like that? It does it complete removes the
• 30:16
  burden of self salvation which we could never bear anyway.
• 30:20
  As we wrap up this deep dive, I want to leave our listeners with
• 30:22
  a thought to chew on. We talked about the duty of the
• 30:26
  Gray headed. The mission to the next
• 30:28
  generation. Right, so here is the question.
• 30:30
  If the primary purpose of our later years is to declare God's
• 30:34
  power to the next generation, are we viewing our own aging
• 30:38
  process as a decline or as the climax of our witness?
• 30:41
  That is a challenging question. Is the Gray hair a sign of
• 30:44
  decay, or is it the crown of the witness earned over a lifetime
• 30:47
  of faithfulness? Something to Mull over as you go
• 30:50
  about your week. Thank you for joining us on
• 30:52
  Reformed Thinking. We hope this deep dive into
• 30:54
  Psalm 71 has been a fortress for your own soul today.
• 30:57
  We'll see you next time.