Psalm 70 - Where’s Your Focus?

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We are in Psalm 70 today.

It's the start of a new week, and this is going to be honestly a really interesting week.

I've been tossing around a couple of ideas on how we're going to finish out this particular week, because we've got three more Psalms left in Book 2 of Psalms, and then we've got two more days left in the week, and then figuring out kind of where

we're going from that spot. So if you have any ideas, please let me know. I might already by the time you get back to me have had some ideas, but it'll definitely help out for the future.

So Psalm 70 is a very brief psalm, and the inscription reads this, For the choir director, a psalm of David to bring remembrance. It says this, God, hurry to rescue me. Yahweh, hurry to help me.

Let those who seek to kill me be disgraced and confounded. Let those who wish me harm be turned back and humiliated. Let those who say ha ha ha ha retreat because of their shame.

Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation continually say God is great. I am oppressed and needy.

Hurry to me, God. You are my help and my deliverer. Yahweh, do not delay.

Here, this is not necessarily one of those big Psalms that really highlights just all of the great ways in which God will save and how I'll smash the head and how he will reign victorious over demons.

For this one, this is just one of those moments in David's life where he's saying, God, I don't currently see the rescue. Like I'm asking that you would do it.

I'm asking that everyone following you will rejoice in your salvation and be able to talk about how great you are. But God, right now, that's not where I'm feeling. Right now, I'm just in desperate need of help.

So let's walk through some of these lines together. And then we might consult the one other Psalm that has this same kind of title. Verse number one, God, hurry to rescue me.

Yahweh, hurry to help me. Man, haven't you been in that situation before where you felt like, God, there is a time crunch on how you can help me. If you're going to rescue me, it needs to come within this time period.

And man, I think even about the story of Lazarus and when Jesus and his disciples, they had just gotten away from Jerusalem. Jesus had been maligned and attacked. They had like wanted to kill him there.

They had picked up stones. Jesus is like, hey, for which one of my good works are you going to stone me? And they say, no, it's because you said that you're the son of God, making yourself equal with God.

So all of that had happened in Jerusalem. They had gotten away from Jerusalem. And Jesus' friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, which, if I remember correctly, is like five to eight miles outside of Jerusalem.

So kind of near there. It would be something that you could do within a couple of hours. And they send word to Jesus that Lazarus is sick and so sick that they want to consult the Messiah to help heal him.

And Jesus receives this word and he still tarries for two days where he is. He holds off on coming to them. And then he decides to go.

And it turns out by the time that they get to Mary and Martha and Lazarus' house, that Lazarus has been dead for four days. And there's a old song by Karen Peck and New River that says when he's four days late, he's still right on time.

And I'm thankful that even when it doesn't come on our timetable, that God is still faithful. That even when we think all hope is lost because God didn't work within the specific day or month or year that we wanted him to, that he's still good to us.

And just as Lazarus discovered, even four days in the tomb, Jesus is still raising him from the dead. That the limitations that we think God has, he has none of those.

And so we might say like, God, where were you when this happened or this happened or this happened? But the truth is, as long as we're breathing, there's still time for God to work.

He might not have wanted you to be in that situation or in that house or in that relationship or with that job. He might have had something that was better for you.

And so he removed you from that place so that he would be able to put you where he wants you to go, where he knows that you need to go for your relationship with him, for the sake of the gospel, for, frankly, your betterment, in many cases, that we

can rely on God's timing and not be just stuck within our own. Though certainly, as David does here, we can ask God, like, hurry, come soon, I need you, I need you to work.

The comfort that I feel is when God doesn't hurry, I'm putting quotes here, when God doesn't hurry to rescue us, that is a clear indication that that was not His will.

And we don't always love that because we think we know what's best for us, but God, who truly knows the end from the beginning, He knows when He doesn't answer a hurry request, it's because there is something greater in store.

There is something that is more in line with His will. Then verses 2 and 3. Let those who seek to kill me be disgraced and confounded.

Let those who wish me harm be turned back and humiliated. Let those who say, aha, aha, retreat because of their shame. Here David's saying, these people are wishing evil against me.

And God, I want you to disgrace them, that they would be ashamed, stupefied, that they ever tried to work against God's people.

certainly, I think here there's a spiritual aspect where Satan is confounded and disgraced and ashamed as he comes against the child of God and he tries to accuse us before the Father. And Jesus is there interceding on our behalf.

And the Holy Spirit is confirming that we are a child of God.

And what a wonderful, amazing truth that our greatest enemy, the enemy of our souls, he is disgraced and confounded and ashamed, humiliated and turned back, turned to retreat because of what Jesus has done.

And what gratitude that ought to spark in our heart. In the words of, was it Isaac Watts or Charles Wesley? No condemnation, now I dread.

Jesus and all in him is mine, alive in him, my living head, and clothed in righteousness divine, bold I approach the eternal throne, and claim the crown through Christ my own. Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, wouldst die for me?

So thankful for that. And certainly here, this would also apply, as David is applying it here, to human interactions. And I don't believe that I have many enemies in a human sense.

But maybe you might have co-workers or bosses or family members or neighbors that just really have it out for you. And I want you to know that you can pray with David here like, God, let their evil intentions be completely turned around.

I think of Joseph and his brothers, where they threw him into a pit. They took his multicolored coat that his dad, that their dad had given him. They ripped it apart.

They put animal's blood on it. They told their dad that Joseph had been eaten by a wild animal, and then they sold Joseph into slavery, and he was in Egypt. And then, the man he was working for, his wife, tried to seduce him, and he rebuffed her.

And so, she claimed that he had raped her, and so he was thrown into prison. And there, God gave him the ability to interpret some dreams of some other prisoners that were there that had worked for the Pharaoh.

And he let one of them know, hey, God has said that you're going to be going back into Pharaoh's court, and you're going to serve him again.

When you do that, when what God has said, when it comes true, will you remember me and let him know that like, I'm in here and I'm innocent and I haven't done anything. And multiple years went by after the man was put back into Pharaoh's court.

But he forgot about Joseph. And in all of those circumstances, it eventually ended up with Joseph being a very prominent commanding figure within the government of Egypt. And he saved all of his family.

And he eventually told his brothers once they were reunited, everything that you did, you intended it for evil, but God intended it for good, so that many people would be saved alive today.

And that can happen within, you know, your enemies, people that would wish you harm. God can turn it around so that you might be put into a spot where it is healthier for you mentally, that so-and-so kind of cuts you off from the relationship.

Or it might be that through a boss disliking you, that you have been able to be a light to a specific group of coworkers that you wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

There are so many ways that God can turn around evil and use it for good for you and for others and for the glory of God. So trust in Him. And you can pray that God would not allow evil to befall you.

But if evil does, then you can know as Joseph, this is all a part of God's working and God's plan. And because I'm not dead yet, God's not done with His plan for me. And so I can trust and follow Him.

Verse number four, Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation continually say God is great. I think it's interesting.

Verse number four, verse number two, verse number two, let those who seek to kill me be disgraced and confounded. Verses verse four, let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.

You can seek to harm others, to kill others, to slander others, to gossip about others, or you can choose to seek God. And in that, you will find rejoicing and gladness in your life. What is the predominant emotion that you're feeling?

Can I tell you from these verses, maybe one way to determine what your direction is right now in life, what your heart is, is looking and seeing, okay, is disgrace and confounding and shame and humiliation, is that describing how I'm feeling in my

life, or is it rejoicing and gladness? Now certainly we know Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

We know that he had times when he wept, times when he, you know, looked at Jerusalem and went, man, how I wanted to love you, and you would not have it. So certainly there are times in life where we have godly sorrow.

But is the predominant character of our life just shame and humiliation, confounding and disgrace? Is it what happens to those who are seeking, maybe either the approval of people or seeking to always be better than people?

Or are we finding the joy and gladness that comes in pursuing the Lord? Maybe you'd say, well, my situations don't really feel like a I can rejoice situation.

Well, I think at the end of verse 4, it even kind of speaks to that, that those who love your salvation continually say God is great. This is something that with a focus on the Lord, that brings joy, not a focus on our circumstances.

It doesn't say, let all those who seek good times rejoice and be glad. It says, let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.

Let those who love happy times, let those who love perfect lives, no, let those who love your salvation continually say God is great. Just in the happy times, no, no, no. Continually say God is great.

When everyone loves me, no, no, no. Continually say God is great. And then I think verse five brings it all right back in for us, that we see what the wicked are doing.

We see what we're asking for God as far as his timeline and his working and how he circumvents evil. That we say with David, I am oppressed and needy. Hurry to me, God.

You are my help and my deliverer. Yahweh, do not delay. As David says, I know who the wicked are.

I know what I'm in need of. I know who God is and that he brings salvation and joy and gladness. But God, right now, I'm oppressed and I'm needy and I need you to work.

And you are my help. You're the one who comes alongside of me. You are my deliverer.

You are the one who makes a path forward for me. Even in the middle of enemies. So he says, Yahweh, do not delay.

Today, maybe you're in a spot where you're feeling the rejoice and being glad. Maybe today, you're in a spot where you are oppressed and needy, and you need a help and a deliverer. God is that one.

Don't turn to, primarily, other people to restore you, to bless you. Like, turn to God.

Turn to the one who loves you most, who can do most for you, the one who can restore not just your circumstances, but your heart, your soul, that where it most truly counts, you can turn to him and find help and deliverance.

Today, what describes you? What is your reaction to trouble? How do you interact with other people?

Are you focusing on circumstances, focusing on others, focusing on the Lord? Wherever you find yourself today, know that God is the answer for everything that you encounter and everything that you face.

Hope that would be an encouragement to you today. Tomorrow, we're going to be looking at Psalm 71. I know it's going to be a good time together.

Thanks for tuning in. See you next time.