Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

Much of our modern Old Testament preaching is more rooted in an unending quest to reach the pinnacle of Maslow’s theory of self-actualization than in the hard facts of Redemption. In Psalm 69, we find the following opening verses:

Save me, O God; For the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is dried: Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. (Psalm 69:1-3, NASB)

Usually, once the preacher establishes these verses as his base text, he launches into David’s personal history of fleeing into a cave in Adullam to escape Saul. He explains that, while David’s in the cave, every kind of malcontent joins him and how he masterfully pens this psalm, asking God to save his “anointed” from out of the awful mess. From that platform, the sermon usually springs right into our 21st century form of oh-woe-is-me and how it is that God helps only those who self-actualize. Here’s one preacher’s take on Psalm 69:1-3:

David was crying out to the Lord. He felt like he was sinking into the deep waters with no sign of help. He cried out to to the Lord for help.

I imagine myself … when I am struggling. Do I see myself doing that or am I trying to solve the problems on my own? Do I call out to Him who knows everything, who sees everything and is perfect? That would be the logical choice and yet I trust in my self more often than not. From an application perspective, I can look at my current situation and recognize very easily that I need the Lord’s help. I am completely unable to accomplish great things on my own right now. I am bogged down with details of things that I cannot seem to get ahead of or beyond. God knows exactly what I should do and how I should do it. I need to call out to Him for advice and guidance. I need to pray more often and listen more clearly! To the point … there is no better time than the present. I am not sure if this is what God had planned for me tonight, but it seems that this would be pleasing to Him . . .

Here’s another preacher:

The psalmist does acknowledge however that somewhere on his journey, he feels he has brought pain to the Lord. In my studies, it is never truly clear what this particular “sin” before God was, although it is definitely acknowledged as wounding and hurtful … “because of me”, the psalmist feels that because of his own actions, the whole community of those who also love God have experienced sadness.

Well I’m sure we’ve all experienced that … the disappointment of someone else’s actions who is known to be a lover of God, and suddenly those around you start to put you in the same box. It definitely can reflect badly on the rest of us. The thing about David’s actions, and in his day … if you were known to have brought some sort of shame on the entire community, you had to wear a visible reminder of your actions. He would have been shunned by those around him, and his guilt takes a visible form. Verse 10 describes weeping, fasting, mourning … the people making fun of him … and those sitting at the city gate begin to write his downfall into the fabric of their drunken songs.

To let people down is such an awful feeling … I’m sure very one of us has felt that feeling. The options are anything from running away, to punishing yourself, pretending nothing happened etc… . and somewhere along the line you have to make amends if you can, and you have to offer forgiveness and receive forgiveness … even if the one you have to eventually be kind to is yourself, as we have ALL made mistakes … and not ONE of them is too large that the blood of Jesus Christ will not cover you.

Is this how we are to take the Old Testament and the psalms? As old “feel like David felt tales?” As ancient analogies to help us with our self-invented psycho-struggles or to be kind with ourselves? When Jesus met with Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus, he manhandled them about these scriptures:

O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory? Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. (Luke 24:25-27, NASB)

He clued us in that our own petty notions of His suffering don’t tinge the head of a match and our use of scripture for self-invention actually roils his anger (Cleopas, a Jew, was looking for a restored Jerusalem). In Romans 15:3, we see the bright glare of Jesus’s censure in our pop psychology-colored glasses:

(1) Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. (2) Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. (3) For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. (Romans 15:1-3, NASB)

In verse 3, Paul invokes Psalm 69:9 in the context of selflessness, but not as some aggrandized vision of being neighborly. Paul quotes Psalm 69:9 as the very first-person words of Jesus Himself. And these aren’t polite words. They are of the words of the One who would go so far in not pleasing Himself that died apart from God to rescue us. And when we take our silly glasses off and stand back a little, we see more of Psalm 69’s Jesus landscape:

For zeal for your house has consumed me. (Psalm 69:7)

His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ (John 2:17)

They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (Psalm 69:21)

They tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh; but He did not take it. (Mark 15:23)

Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head (Psalm 69:4)

But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’ (John 15:25)

In Not Abandoned In Hell, I showed how Acts 2:27 was Jesus’s own statement and that He stayed in hell (hades) until He was raised by God, the Father. Seeing Psalm 69 as “one of the “scriptures concerning Himself,” we see more of why Jesus dressed Cleopas down about his self-actualized view of scripture:

May the flood of water not overflow me, Nor the deep swallow me up, Nor the pit shut its mouth on me. (Psalm 69:15)

Because you will not abandon my soul to Hades, Nor allow your Holy One to undergo destruction. (Acts 2:27)

Psalm 40: No Self-Help Here, demonstrated how Psalm 40 wasn’t about self-help, but was actually part Jesus’s very prayers in hell:

I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,
And he set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. (NASB)

With the glasses off, Psalm 69:1-3 carries the very same gleam:

Save me, O God,
For the waters have threatened my life.
I have sunk in deep mire, and there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters, and a flood overflows me.
I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched;
My eyes fail while I wait for my God. (NASB)

And while I have been focusing on Jesus’s presence in hell for the series, these psalms also speak of His ascension and our redemption, e.g.:

What I did not steal, I then have to restore. (Psalm 69:4, NASB)

He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised for our justification. (Romans 4:25)

For God will save Zion and build the cities of Judah,
That they may dwell there and possess it.
The descendants of His servants will inherit it,
And those who love His name will dwell in it. (Psalm 69:35-36)

In this day and age we never hear about Jesus’s anger, but sometimes I wonder just how long we’ve been standing in Cleopas’s shoes.