Psalm 70 - The Cry of the King

There are different ways to ask for something.

Of course, we’re always trying to get our kids to use the CORRECT way of asking. It goes something like this…

“Can you pass the crisps..”

(No parental response).

(So, louder now) “CAN YOU PASS THE CRISPS”.

(Cue the parental death stare). “Pardon?”

Dawning realisation on child’s face… “please…. Can you pass the crisps, please”.

Then you get the other kind of asking… the shout comes from upstairs… “mum, he’s stolen my toy”. This rarely brings a positive response. “I’m not interested in your bickering…”.

But of course there are some shouts for attention which aren’t like either of those… parents, I guess, recognise the difference. There are the urgent shouts…. The cries of pain or sorrow or anguish that you know are a real and deep and heartfelt response to real pain, or hurt, or danger.

And it’s THAT sort of a cry we hear today in this Psalm. And, if you’ve lived more than 5m in this broken world it’s a feeling and a cry which I am sure you’ll relate to and FEEL deeply… even if you haven’t faced David’s precise situation.

See how he begins?

(Read slowly / with feeling)

Psalm 70:1 NIV

Hasten, O God, to save me; come quickly, Lord, to help me.

Can you feel David’s deep need….? Lord HELP….

Can you hear the urgency? Come QUICK… don’t DELAY.

Again, perhaps you relate to this instantly… a sense of desperate need for God to help… some situation faced that is all-to-real… all-to-awful… and far to big for you to cope.

BREAK OFF / LONG PAUSE….

Someone once told me that preaching Psalms is a bit like explaining a joke… not because they’re funny (this one certainly isn’t). Preaching a Psalm is like explaining a joke - the more words of explanation you give, the less effective it is.

Psalms like this, in a sense, speak for themselves. They aren’t so much meant to be analyses syllable by syllable… but instead used, said, prayed, sung, and above all, FELT.

So as we look as this short and heart felt cry… I’ll attempt to let the Psalm speak… I am hoping this sermon on this Psalm won’t feel too much like explaining a joke.

We do, however, need just a few words to help us understand the background and the proper use of this Psalm, that’s our first heading.

1. The Repetition and Right-Reading of the Psalm

REPETITION…

Firstly a word on the repetition of this Psalm. Conscientious students of the Psalms may find these words familiar…. you may even know that this Psalm (Psalm 70) is a virtually verbatim repeat of a SECTION of an earlier Psalm - Psalm 40.

If you were to look at Psalm 40 verses 13 - 17 you would find Psalm 70 is a repeat of that - almost word for word identical.

The Bible scholars speculate as to the reasons for this… most agree this repeat probably happened because different collections of the Psalms were compiled and someone this section got separated and repeated in that process.

Which tells you something doesn’t it? It tells you that the Psalms were always meant to be USED by the people of God. They were just written and put in a glass box and never touched. No they were taken and USED by the Lord’s people.

Yes, at one level, this is a Psalm of David - written by him about his experience… but it became, not just a Psalm of David, but a Psalm of the people. They took these collections of Psalms and used them in their lives…. in their worship… in their prayers.

RIFF - Anglican daily office reading - 2-4 Psalms per day. Psalm singing church

There’s something else here too… when you read Psalm 40 (which is a longer Psalm) you’ll see these words - which are a desperate cry for help… are surrounded (in the rest of the Psalm) by words of assurance about how God HAS responded and HAS helped. Whereas, in Psalm 70 (this much shorter Psalm) - there’s none of that, we simply have David’s desperate cry… his requests to God.

And isn’t that so helpful? In God’s providence he has arranged this repetition like this!

Becuase both are tue in the experience of the Christian life, aren’t they? Sometimes we cry to the Lord in our desperation and his miraculous help seems o come straight away. I’ve experienced that, I’m sure you have too.

Other times we pray and pray… and the Lord makes us wait. Or else his answer comes in some unexpected form.

How helpful, how true, how real to the Christian life the Psalms are.

That’s a word on the repetition, what about the right reading of this Psalm?

RIGHT READING…

What I mean is this… who are we in the Psalm? Where do we picture ourselves?

Whenever we read any story or any portion of Scripture, our tendancy (in our minds eye) is to make ourselves the hero… to identify ourselves with the main heroic character at the centre of the story.

Now in SOME WAYS that’s the right thing to do here - we’ve already said how much David’s experience echoes with our own. But we also ought to be careful doing that - remember, whenever you’re reading the Bible - you’re not the hero (you’re more likely to be the villain) you’re not the hero, JESUS IS!

And especially when it comes to Psalms of David… remember David is the ANOINTED KING of Israel. Literally that means he is the CHRIST. That what Christ means, it means ‘Anointed King’. And so often (not always) but often…. before David points to reflect on our experience… he points us to reflect on Jesus.

We’ll see that as we go through.

Perhaps, though, I am wading into the territory of ‘explaning a joke’ too much, so we best press on. Here’s the second heading…

2. The Request of the King

The word “request” is probably a little bland to be honest…

The CRY of the King?

The desperate prayer of the King?

PAUSE

We can’t be sure of the details of David’s circumstances, but they are clearly desperate. v1 again…

read slowly

Psalm 70:1 NIV

1 Hasten, O God, to save me; come quickly, Lord, to help me.

The Psalm gets bookended, start and finish with the same anxious cry… v5

read slowly

Psalm 70:5 NIV

5 But as for me, I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; Lord, do not delay.

Notice the urgency….. notice the language… come QUICKLY…. Lord HASTEN, do not DELAY. Things are desperate.

And notice David’s state… despite being the King (as he is), at this point he is (quote) poor and needy… in need of deliverance, desperate for help.

And WHY? Well there are those (v2) who are trying to take his life… and given the urgency it seems that’s not a somesome-day-maybe-hypothetic-threat… his life is in immanent danger.

There are those who desire his ruin, and who scheme against him.

We don’t know what’s happened (for sure), but we know there were those times in David’s life when there were coups were attempted against him. Times when he found himself on the run and under threat.

So there is the request (or perhaps better the urgent CRY) of the King.

Psalm 70:1 NIV

1 Hasten, O God, to save me; come quickly, Lord, to help me.

Pause

Secondly this Psalm contains two, clear, and distinct responses to the King. That’s our third heading, the third thing to notice.

3. The Responses to the King

You see these two distinct groups….

There are those who oppose God and who seek the downfall of his King and his people.

And then there are those who trust God and seek the good of his King and his people.

We see these two groups in today’s Psalm….. but this is not our first encounter with them - far from it. In fact as we have been travelling through book 2 of the Psalms …. Do you know by the way that the Psalms are divided into 5 books…

Just as an aside… the number five is important in the Psalms (in case you think the book has no structure and is just a random collection of individual poems - not so!)

The whole book ends with what are called the five HALLELUJAH Psalms… so called because they start and end with that Hebrew word Hallelujah which means praise the Lord…. that’s the first clue that collections of 5 in the Psalms is key…

From there we see that the Psalms have been grouped together (most experts reckon) into these five BOOKS, they have different emphasis and themes….

It’s probably FIVE sections to match the five books of the law - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy - which are called the Torah which means (you guessed it) LAW. Here in the Psalms we have five books of poems and prayers… which are to accompany the lives of believers seeking to follow the Lord by obeying these five books of the law. There’s a certain symmertry (even poetry, you might say!) to that.

Anyway, apart from those five Hallelujah Psalms at the END… the only Psalms which stand OUTSIDE this structure (of the five books) are Psalms 1 and 2 at the BEGINNING- which form the introduction. I say that because most of the other Psalms in book 1 are linked to David except Psalms 1 and 2 (which are anonymous)… they seem to stand apart and act as an introduction to the whole thing.

Anyway, we’ve got off on a tangent there - although hopefully an interesting one.

The point we were seeing where the TWO groups of people we see in Psalm 70….

Those who trust God and honour his King….

Those who oppose God and dishonour his king…

From the very beginning of Psalms those themes are apparent. In fact Psalms 1 and 2 - the introduction to the whole thing are about EXACTLY those themes.

Psalms 1 - do you know it? Its a good thing to memorise.

Psalm 1:1–3 NIV

1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. 3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.

And so on…. there is the blessed life of those who trust God.

Psalm 2 - by contrast….

Psalm 2:1–3 NIV

1 Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, 3 “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.”

Anyway back to Psalm 70, these two groups evident in and around the life of David.

First group (letter a)…

A) Opposition

Those who oppose God and his king - look at v2…

Psalm 70:2–3 NIV

2 May those who want to take my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace. 3 May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!” turn back because of their shame.

There are those who are all about… Death, Defeat, and Deceit.

They want to end the Kings life… they want his ruin (defeat)… and they don’t care how they go about it…. the are scandalous and DEVIOUS - Aha!, Aha! they say (v3) they try connive to trick and to trap King David.

You might say, well this has never happened to me. But don’t make the mistake of reading yourself into the Psalm - not straight away at least - you’re not the annointed King David his and so let his experience point first of all, not to your life… but to the life of another anointed King, THE anointed King Jesus.

Pause - slower…

And couldn’t these words have been written about him and his experience.

Those Pharisees and teachers of the law… Aha! Aha! they said as they asked their questions of him…. not question designed to learn… but conniving questions designed to trap and to trick…

Those religious leaders… and in the end, the crowds, who wanted him ruined, who cried for his downfall.

The world that stood against him and tried (and succeeded) in taking his life.

Pause

The Lord, the King of all, the one through whom all things were made came to this broken and sin-spoiled world… to teach, to heal, to drive back the forces of evil, to act in humility and compassion, to seek and to save the lost… and what did the sin-spoiled people of our sin-spoiled world do… they put him to death.

David was resuced from the trials of Psalm 70… but Jesus went all the way to the cross and the grave to rescue you.

Pause - break off…

David encounters opposition… but there are also those who seek to obey the Lord and honour his King… (letter b).

B) Obedience

One Bible commentator puts it this way…

One group desires the king’s demise, the other seeks the God who is in covenant with this king CHRISTOPHER ASH

Read on - v4…

Psalm 70:4 NIV

4 But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who long for your saving help always say, “The Lord is great!”

Here there is Seeking God… and Salvation from God, and Singing (praise) to God

Here is the echo of Psalm 1… David prays that even in the midst of a world stained by sin and spoiled by opposition to God… that those who still seek God and trust God… would be GLAD in God.

That those who trust in God as saviour would rejoice in him as their great King.

Pause - break off

It’s Aareminder too that we need God’s SAVING help. See it there, v4? “may those who long for your SAVING help always say…”

It’s a reminder that the two great groups in this Psalm and in life are NOT those who are sinners vs those who are perfect… it’s those who continue in their sin, vs those who turn and trust in God as saviour - which are you?

For them David prays there will be much Seeking of God… and abundant Salvation from God, and joyful Singing to God

So, the request of the King… (we’ve seen David’s experience)

the responses TO the King… (we’ve seen how the two groups David meets sum up our two responses, not just to David, but to Jesus).

Finally… what about us… how do we make use of a Psalm like this in lives life ours?

That’s point 4…

4. The Right use of the Psalm

Firstly…

A) Let it lead you to trust in the King

You’ve seen the two possible responses to God’s King haven’t you?

You’ve seen (if I can put it this way) the TWO WAYS TO LIVE that this Psalm identifies…

How foolish it would be to remain among those who want nothing but deceit, and defeat, and even death for God’s king Jesus. They (says David) will end up turned back in but shame and confusion.

SO may YOU (in answer to David’s prayer - v4) may YOU seek the Lord. And in seekign him may you find joy in him… and in coming to him as your saviour - may you know him as your great king (end of v4).

Have you done that?

Are you doing that?

Are you living that out?

Le this Psalm about the anointed King David, lead you toTHE great er anointed King, Jesus.

Let is lead you to trust in the King, and THEN, and only then, lastly…

B) Let it end you to pay like the King

Three brief thoughts on how this Psalm guides our prayers… firstly

Pray honestly in your need…

Yes, primarily the Psalm points us to Jesus, but it has a resonance for our experience too. You may not have face immanent death… but we’ve all had dark times of real trouble.

Hasten O God to save me - is a good prayer.

Lord come quick to help me - is a right prayer.

(even) Lord do not delay - is an appropriate cry of our hearts.

So Pray honestly in your need…

Also…

Pray for the frustration of evil…

I want to quote here a paragraph from one Bible commentator - James Montgomery Boice - he’s commenting on the way David prays for the defeat of evil and of his enemies and he says…

Psalms, Volume 2: (Psalms 42–106): An Expositional Commentary The Psalmist’s Prayer

It is not the way Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies, is it? We are to pray charitably and for their help or salvation: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (

It5’s not wrong… it’s right to pray for evil to be thwarted… and those who oppose the Lord to be turned back in shame… without conviction of sin there is no turning to the saviour.

Pray for the flourishing of God’s people…

It’s striking isn’t it, that even in this dark time of David’s need he’s concerned that others might still be seeking God… and still be rejoicing in God… and still looking in saving faith to God.

That’s the most important thing for us, and for others too.

Let’s make right use of this Psalm in our lives, lets do that now, let’s pray.