The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Hurry, come quickly, don't delay. Have you ever found yourself in so much trouble that if God doesn't help immediately, it may be too late? Such were the cries of a desperate king. And if David, a godly man, had serious problems that required God's immediate attention, should we be surprised when we find ourselves in a similar bind?

Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet project with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. What we do in desperate times is obvious, we pray. And that's what Psalm 70 is, a prayer from a man on the run. Turn in your Bible to Psalm 70 as Dr. Boice examines this short but bold petition David raised in the face of his enemies.

Dr. James Boice: Something unique about this psalm or nearly unique and that is that for the second time, only the second time on the Psalter, we come to material that has been in the Psalter earlier. In other words, it's a repetition. First time that happened was more obvious. Psalm 14 is repeated as Psalm 53, and in that case the repetition is almost exact, the two psalms stand almost side by side, few slight variations in choice of word, but mostly that's the same.

In this case, Psalm 70 is not an exact repetition of a psalm that occurred earlier, but it does occur as part of a psalm that occurred earlier. The psalm in which it appears is Psalm 40, a psalm that is better known than this one because of its beginning. It describes David, the author, being in a pit from which God rescued him, you know how it goes: I waited patiently for the Lord, he turned to me and heard my cry, he lifted me up out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. That is the psalm from which this is drawn, and these verses, these five verses that appear as Psalm 70, appear as verses 13 to 17 in the 40th Psalm.

Now, there are number of things to be observed about that before we go any further. One of them being that if God repeats something for us, as he does here, we better pay attention. It's funny that the commentators don't always do that, the commentators for the most part pass over this because they've already treated the verses earlier when they were talking about Psalm 40. Well, they sometimes say, if God says something once we better pay attention, if he says it twice, my goodness we ought to pay a lot of attention.

And of course, in the case of Psalm 40, which is repeated as Psalm 53, which is also repeated parts of it at least, the first three verses in the New Testament in the book of Romans, we better give it wrapped attention. Something that's desperately necessary for us to know. And so, just recognizing that we have a repetition here means that we ought to study this again, and deeply, and perhaps in a level that we didn't do it the first time around. That's the first thing we observe.

Now, the things we want to think about next are the technical kind of problems and it's best to get them out of our minds because they come to our minds early and we ought to treat them. What is the relationship of the two Psalms? For example, what part of this was first? Was Psalm 70 written first and then expanded upon in order to make Psalm 40? Were there actually two psalms, first half of Psalm 40 and this psalm, and they were put together in order to make what we have is Psalm 40?

The liberal critical commentators tend to think that, and for this reason, the first half of Psalm 40 talks about a deliverance which the psalmist has received: I was in a miry pit, the Lord lifted me out, he set my feet upon a rock. That's what the first half deals with. The second half, which is this psalm, is looking forward to a future deliverance, it wants a deliverance that's yet to occur. And so, the critical scholars look at that and say, well those two things don't fit, they've sort of been thrown together in an awkward manner by some redactor.

Well, there are a lot of psalms that are like that. This is not uncommon for the psalms, and it would be equally possible to explain the diversion as saying that these last verses of Psalm 40 were extracted by a later writer and set apart in order to speak in a fresh way to a later situation in a later generation. Now, that's what I think actually happened. Doesn't make much difference how it happened, but I think that's the way it happened and the placing of the two psalms in the Psalter probably indicates that.

Psalm 40 occurs earlier in the first book of the Psalter in a collection of psalms that are generally by David, not every single one of them but most of them are. And this one occurs later in a more eclectic set of psalms. So, perhaps that's what it's all about. The other question that's technical in nature has to do with the variations. There are just a few, and when you begin to look at Psalm 70 and think about the variations, it would seem that what has happened here is that Psalm 70 has been altered just a bit in order to intensify it or stress the urgency of the situation.

Let me just show you a few of those differences. You don't notice them real well in the English text because the translators tend to make the psalms sound alike, but the differences are there, some of them in English and more of them in Hebrew. For example, Psalm 40, verse 13, the start of the verses that are quoted here as a different psalm, begin with the words 'Be pleased', but here they're omitted. In fact, Psalm 70, which you're looking at, doesn't actually in the Hebrew have the word 'Hasten' at the start, although the translators think that's necessary to make sense in the English.

Actually, the Hebrew words say something like this: 'God to deliver me, Lord to my help, hurry'. You get the idea, you see it's just as urgent in the Hebrew as it is in English. Well, the fact that some of these words are omitted and thing is condensed actually intensifies it and stresses the urgency of the situation. You're not much interested in this, but the Hebrew text of Psalm 40:14 has the words 'Together' after the word 'Confounded' and the words 'To destroy it' after 'Seek my life', and they don't occur in Psalm 40. I might mention that in the English version they don't occur in Psalm 40 either, but they're there in the Hebrew and they're eliminated in the second verse. Well, the point seems to be that this is a desperate situation, and so it's intensified and that's the way we have to understand it.

Now, what the problem was here, the author, David presumably, does not say clearly. You look at it, it's evident that he's in trouble because of enemies. They're mocking him, verse 3, they're saying, 'Aha, aha', a way of making fun of him. He says in an earlier verse that they're seeking his life, so not just mocking, this is really a dangerous situation. But particularly what that was we don't know.

Now David is the author and we think back about what we know of his life, we know that there were two periods in his life where he was very literally being pursued by enemies and in danger of death. One was before he became king when King Saul was seeking him out of jealousy trying to kill him, and the other was when his son Absalom rebelled and Absalom was trying to do away with him. So we know we have those two periods, one before he became king, one relatively late, but as you read the psalms, you get the impression because David speaks again and again of his enemies that this was a habitual thing with him.

There were always people who were trying to do him in. I sometimes say when I think along those lines that the more prominent you are in society, the more people are after you. Well, if you're not prominent, be thankful, you don't have the problems that people in high office do, and especially if you were king in a situation like this. Well, that ought to tell us some things. Remember David was a good king. Now were bad kings and we wouldn't be surprised at all if people were out to do them in and we'd almost rejoice if they succeeded, but not with David.

David was a man after God's own heart, he was a man of integrity. When he had an opportunity to kill Saul, as he did on several occasions and he would have become king right away, he didn't do it. He said, 'I won't lift up my hand against the Lord's anointed'. So even when his enemy was within his power, he didn't kill him. And when he had an opportunity to do good even to those who sought his life, he seemed to do it. God approved of him, was a godly man, he wrote the psalms. Jews and those in the Christian Church have been blessed by this great collection of Hebrew poetry ever since for hundreds and hundreds of years.

A very godly man, and yet you see he has problems. Not only that, he has bad problems, so much so that he's calling out for God to help him in a hurry or it's going to be too late. And so, the point is if you and I have problems, who are we to think we shouldn't have problems? Even David had problems, all of us have problems. This is a bad world. You know, some people go around in the world giving the impression that everything's all right and we almost think we have to reply that way politely, you know, somebody says, 'Hi, how are you?'. 'Fine', you say. 'How are things going?'. 'Fine', you say. 'How's the business?'. 'Fine', we say.

The business might be ready to collapse and might be a disaster at home and somebody might be out to get us in some other way and the IRS is breathing down our neck. Sorry to bring that up at this particular season of the year, but there are all kinds of problems, just the way life is. And we shouldn't be surprised by that, this is a bad world. If even David had trouble, not surprising that we do. And I suppose we ought to say we shouldn't even be surprised if our situation seems desperate.

Now, I said this is the way the alterations in the psalm go, but now look at it, how often the word 'Hasten' or its equivalent occurs. Just look in our English text, it's there twice in verse 1. 'Hasten, O God, to save me, O Lord come quickly to help me'. Right? And then you find it twice at the end in verse 5. 'Come quickly to me O God, O Lord do not delay'. So you got the emphasis at the beginning and you got the emphasis at the end four times in just five verses. And it leads me to say, have you ever felt like that?

I don't mean have you ever been in trouble, we've already got past that point, but have you ever been in trouble that seems so severe that if God doesn't help you, it's going to be too late? Now, sometimes the business is about to collapse and you say, you know, God the money is due on Friday and if you help me on Monday it's going to be too late, the bank's going to foreclose, I'm going to be done, you see. Or maybe health, health may be declining and you may be praying to the Lord desperately, you may say, 'O Lord, come quickly to help me now, don't wait, don't wait till tomorrow because tomorrow may be too late'. I'm sure you've been in situations like that, and so if you have, the psalm is really a psalm for you.

Now, we ask the question, what do you do in times like that? When you're in trouble, real danger, and it's a desperate situation, you need help right away. Now, the answer, obvious, is that you pray. If you're a Christian, if you know God, if you understand something about his nature, you pray. And that's exactly what David is doing. He's praying, that's what the psalm is. You see, that is what Paul said. Paul was well aware when he wrote to the Philippians, to give just one example, that Christians do face difficult situations which in this case, the verses I'm going to quote are perhaps not quite as desperate as the situation faced by David but desperate enough to produce anxiety.

It's the very word he uses. And so what he tells the Philippians is this: 'Don't be anxious about anything, but', he says, 'in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God, and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus'. So, here's another important thing to notice. Psalm 70 is a prayer, it's a prayer throughout, the whole thing is a prayer. And so, we want to look at it and we say, well, what is it that David prays for?

How does he go about it? Now, that's the outline, everything's been an introduction so far. What is the outline? Well, first of all, he prays for himself, and what he prays for is a very quick deliverance. That's the way it starts, also the way it ends. Now, some time ago, I suppose when I was still in school, somebody taught me a little acrostic that's supposed to guide us when we pray. It's a little acrostic, ACTS. Have you ever heard it? A-C-T-S. Each of those letters stands for something and the flow of it is more or less the flow of a good prayer.

The A stands for adoration, it has to do with recognizing who God is and praising him for who he is. The C stands for confession because one of the things we recognize about God is his holiness, and if we really do recognize it, we understand that we're sinners, we have to confess our sin or you didn't get by the first part. And then the T stands for thanksgiving. We thank God for what he's done, he's a gracious good God flows from his nature. And then last of all, the S stands for supplications, in other words making our requests.

Now, that is what a good prayer is like. A lot of our prayers are not like that, we just come and ask for things right off. You know, God bless me and my wife, my son John and his wife, us four and no more. Amen. That's the way a lot of our prayers go or they have to do with people who are sick or they have to do with those who have financial problems and that's all we do. We never really have a sense of coming into the presence of God and that is why I always appreciate it when a prayer is like that.

Whenever I have the opportunity to give a pastoral prayer, as I don't hear normally because the other pastors do, but do in other places, I more or less try to follow that. I often review the attributes of God in the first part, thinking of his sovereignty and his grace and his holiness and his wisdom and his love, his compassion, his forgiveness and all of those things because when you get that in your mind, then the other things really fall into a proper place. I noticed when Dr. McDowell was praying here this evening, he prayed using more or less the outline of the psalms, which do that as well, you see.

A very good prayer, all of that in which you honor God before you make requests. Having said that, look at this psalm. It is not what David does, is it? David doesn't pray anything about the attributes of God, he doesn't spend time even confessing his sins or thanking him for his many blessings. He gets right to the point and what he does is call on God to help him praying first not even for others but for himself. 'Hasten, O God, to save me, O Lord come quickly to help me'. I ask the question, why doesn't David follow that better outline in his psalm?

Didn't anybody ever give David the acts acrostic? Didn't he know how to write good poetry? Hadn't he practiced prayer? Of course he has, the answer to it is he's in trouble. And so he's in trouble, gets right to the point. There's nothing wrong with getting to the point when you really are in a situation like this. Most of us are not, most of the time, but when you are, there's nothing wrong with that. You know, one of my great verses from the Old Testament is a situation where Moses is standing on the bank of the Red Sea and he's got all these Jews with him that he's just brought out of Egypt, about a million of them, and the Egyptian army is right behind him and they're about to attack, they can see the dust of the chariots.

And he says to himself, 'This is a good time to pray'. And so he begins to pray, and what God says to him is, 'This is not a good time to pray. Why are you praying to me? Speak unto the people of Israel that they move forward', and they get on across the sea, you see. So, I suppose in some desperate situations, there can be a time when it's not even good to pray, it's good to act, get going, pray later, you know. But most cases that's not our problem and especially when there's nothing to be done, the thing to do is pray and ask God to help and help right away. That's what David does.

I suppose it was that kind of directness that appealed to Martin Luther. Martin Luther didn't beat around the bush, you know. He didn't cover up how he felt with multisyllabic theological terms. Luther just spoke it right out and I suppose that's why he liked this. I pointed out that most of the commentators don't even deal with this because they've treated it more or less in their treatment of Psalm 40 and so you work through the books and when I go through this in preparation for these studies week by week, I have about 30 of these commentaries that I just look through to see what they all have to say about the psalm.

Most of them skip it entirely, but not Luther. There's a whole collection of Luther's works that are published by Concordia Press, a great volume on the psalms, several volumes on the psalms actually. And in this particular edition, the definitive edition of Luther's works, 10 pages are given to an exposition of this psalm. At one point, Luther's saying, 'This prayer is the shield, spear, thunderbolt and defense of the Christian against every attack of fear, presumption and lukewarmness which are especially dominant today'.

I'm sure that's why Luther liked the psalm because he speaks of fear. He had plenty of reason to be afraid, they were trying to get him too, kill him, you see. But he understood here the spirit in which David prays immediately, urgently and for himself. Now that's the first thing he prays for. The second thing, second point in this outline is that he prays for his enemies and what he prays for is their shame and confusion. You see it in verses 2 and 3.

Now, that's not the way Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies, is it? Didn't he say that we're to pray charitably and for their help or their salvation? I'll give you a quotation, Matthew 5:43 and 44: 'You have heard it 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 the sons of your Father in heaven'. That's what Jesus said. But here's what David does, he prays in regard to his enemies: number one, that those who seek his life may be put to shame and confusion; number two, that those who desire his ruin may be turned back in disgrace; and number three, that those who mock him saying, 'Aha, aha' may be turned back in their shame.

I want to suggest that there's no conflict between those two and moreover what David prays for is exactly right. If you can think back to Psalm 69 when we were studying that, you know that there are verses there that are far more problematic for us. In the psalms there are sections which are called imprecatory, that is the psalmist calling down wrath upon the heads of his enemies and David does that in the 69th Psalm. One thing he says there is that he wants them to be blotted out of the book of life and not even be listed with the righteous. What he's saying, I think, is that he wants people like that to be sent to hell.

We have trouble with that, naturally, we should. But that's not what David is doing here. David isn't praying that God will send his enemies to hell, he's simply asking that they'll be confounded in their evil, that they'll be turned back in disgrace when they try to destroy those who are really righteous, certainly including himself. Now, I want to suggest that that is exactly the thing that we should pray for those who are practicing evil, even for their own good. You certainly wouldn't want to pray that their evil would prosper.

All those people out there doing bad things, 'O God bless them, may they have the desires of their hearts'. I don't want the evil people to have the desires of their hearts, I want God to put them to shame, confound them, not allow evil to prosper. That's the right way to pray. But you see, it's even for their own good because evil tends to harden the heart. People who practice evil get harder and more belligerent in what they do and eventually perish in their evil.

So one of the best things we can pray for them is that God will turn their evil designs to naught so that it may be, if he is pleased in his grace, they can be reached in the frustration that they're experiencing. Many people have found that. I know people that I'm dealing with today in whose lives things are not going well, but they're going their own way, you see. And God sends bad things in order that they might be pulled up short and begin to look at their lives and then begin to go in his direction.

I suppose before we leave this, we ought to point out that this record of how David was treated by his enemies parallels the experience of Jesus Christ at the time of his crucifixion because they mocked him too. People that were seeking his life made fun of him. Matthew is the one that gives us the greatest version of that, the most complete version, he writes: 'Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, you who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, come down from the cross if you're the son of God'.

Then he adds, 'In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him, he saved others, they said, but he can't save himself. He's the King of Israel, let him come down now from the cross and we'll believe on him. He trusts in God, let God rescue him now if he wants him because he said I am the Son of God'. Rather cruel words for somebody who was dying, and yet that's what they were doing. Now if that's the way they treated Jesus and Jesus bore that patiently and committed all things into the hands of the Father and even prayed for those who were using him despitefully, that becomes a pattern for us. We should be willing to bear the insults of evil people too.

Well, the third thing David does, what he prays for is the righteous, and what he prays for in their case is for their delight in God. What he says is that he's praying for those who seek God and love his salvation. Now, why does he pray for them when his case is so urgent? You see, I said he doesn't even begin with the attributes of God, he doesn't begin by confessing his sin, he doesn't even pause to thank God for things, he plunges right in, he expresses his problem, but as he moves on through the psalm he begins to pray for the righteous.

Why does he take time to do that if the case really is as urgent as it seems? Well, one answer to that is that it is always good to be reminded that there are other righteous people and that they suffer the same kind of things as we do. I think of the case of Elijah after he had been on Mount Carmel. Remember that God had used him to overthrow that vast bastion of Baal worship? He had the great contest there on the mountain and he challenged the priests of Baal to build an altar and he built an altar and they doused it with water and he said, 'Now pray for God to send down fire and consume your altar'.

And so they did, they spent all day praying to Baal, 'Send down fire upon the altar', nothing happened, of course. And then Elijah prayed and the fire came, everything was consumed, even the water in the ditch around the altar was burned up. It was a great victory, but it was a tremendous strain. Talk about stress, imagine being in a situation like that. Furthermore, after they had killed the prophets of Baal, the king and his wife said, 'We're going to get you, Elijah', and in fear he fled.

And he went way out into the desert and there he was sitting by a little brook under a juniper tree and he was bemoaning his life and he was saying that he really wanted to die. It's sad, but we understand it. Here he's crying out, he's praying, he says to God, 'I've been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty, the Israelites have rejected your covenant, they've broken down your altars, they've put your prophets to death with the sword, I am the only one left and now they're trying to kill me too'.

Well, God was very gentle with him because he understood what he had gone through. He gave him a helper and told him to go anoint a new king, all of that was helpful. But what God said in the context was this, he said, 'No, no Elijah, you think you're the only one but remember I want you to know this: there are yet 7,000 in Israel all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him'. You see, he was reminding him that although he felt all alone, as we often do in our problems, it was not the case.

God still had 7,000, and God has people like that today too regardless of what your problem may be. And again, one reason why David prays for these others is that it's important to pray for them. You see, he would say to other people, 'Pray for me, I'm going through tough times', well he ought to pray for them. And the very fact that he was going through tough times and was in danger gave him a certain empathy and ability and force in praying for the other people.

You see, that would be a great help to each of us if whenever we're going through some particular problem, we'd make it an intellectual point to pray for other people we know who are going through the same problem because who's going to understand them better than you if you're going through exactly what they're going through? Have you lost your job? Maybe you're middle-aged and you've lost your job and you're saying, 'How am I going to get another job? Nobody wants me, it's a tough field out there to try and find a job'.

Well, that's a very good time to pray for other people who don't have jobs. And if you're in that situation and you'd like to do that, we have a whole list of people who don't have jobs. We're trying to help sometimes wherever we can. That's a helpful thing. Suppose you're a Christian in a family where nobody else is a Christian, they're down on you all the time. You can hardly say anything about your faith, soon as you do, bang, they come on you, this 'Holy Joe' trying to do this sort of thing, and 'Shut up, we've had enough of that, you're not even going to be welcome here if you mention the name of Jesus again'.

A lot of people go through that. Well, if that's what you're going through, pray for people who are going through that and form a little prayer support group where you do that. You see, that's what David is doing. He's going through these trials and he's allowing his trials to teach him how to pray for other people. There's one other thing I want you to notice about his prayer for the other righteous, and that is what he prays for them.

You see, what he's praying for himself is that God will intervene, deliver him, save him, if it's God's will to do that. And probably he prays that for the other people, but that's not what he records here. What he prays for here in this psalm actually is that they might rejoice and be glad in God and be able to say always, 'Let God be exalted'. Because you see, that's the real victory. Here is David praying that God will intervene and save him quickly before it's too late, but Christians have prayed that prayer and God has not intervened and has not saved them.

You're in a desperate situation, health is bad, Christians in situations like that die. Sometimes people have financial problems, they ask God to intervene, he doesn't intervene, you see. The victory is not in having God always miraculously intervene to solve the situation though frequently he does, but the real victory is in being able to say 'Let God be exalted, I'm going to praise him and I'm going to rejoice in God regardless of the circumstances in my life'.

Just think of Job. Job was brought before the attention of Satan by God himself and commended as a righteous man. God said to Satan, 'Have you considered my servant Job? There's none like him in all the earth, he's a righteous man, he doesn't offend with his tongue or deed in anything he does'. And Satan said, 'He just does that because you made him a rich man'. And so God said, 'We'll put that to the test. You're allowed to take away his possessions, you can't touch him, but you can take away his possessions'.

So Satan smacked his hand, got down there, took away all his possessions, the possession was in livestock, all of them were killed. Then even he touched his children, seven sons, three daughters, all killed. And then you read what happened. When Job heard it, he got up, he tore his robe, he shaved his head, two well-known signs of mourning, then he fell to the ground and worshiped and he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will depart, the Lord gave, the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised'.

The chapter ends by saying, 'In all this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing'. That's the victory. That's the victory that overcomes the world, that's the victory of faith, you see. Job saying 'Let God be exalted', and that's what we ought to say in every situation because he will be. That's the point of it all, what God is doing in history is honoring his name, and so Christians who know him should be able to say that rejoicing in God and being glad.

Now, we come to the last verse of the psalm, it's what I would call the psalmist's most basic beliefs or persuasion, it's where he ends up and it has two parts: number one, that he is poor and needy; and number two, that God is his help and deliverer. 'Yet I am poor and needy, come quickly to me O God, you are my help and my deliverer, O Lord do not delay'. One of the very brief comments on this psalm is by G. Campbell Morgan.

He wrote a little book, tiny little book in which he goes through all the psalms and provides a little bit of comment about each one. And what he says about the faith that is displayed in this last stanza is that it is not the highest type of faith because although the psalmist apparently believes in God's ability to help, he doubts whether it will arrive in time. In my opinion, that isn't right because of what I have just said, the help does not always arrive in time, God does not always choose to do it.

You know the three men who were Daniel's friends in Babylon when they refused to bow down to the great statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up and their reply to Nebuchadnezzar they're going to be thrown into this burning furnace said, 'If the God we serve chooses to deliver us, he's able to do that, but if not, we still want you to know that we're not going to worship the idol which you have set up'. God does not always do that, and therefore the height of faith is not to believe because you can't believe contrary to the facts that God is always going to provide the deliverance, but to recognize nevertheless that we are needy and if there is any help to be found, it's going to be found in God.

You see, that's what a Christian says, the very name Jesus has to do with the fact that Jehovah saves, that's what we have to do. A lot of Christians and even other people get off base at either of those two points. First of all, they're not so sure they're needy, they think they can help themselves. I say even Christians because you may not know this but according to a recent public opinion poll, over 60 percent even so-called evangelical Christians believe that the saying 'God helps those who help themselves' is in the Bible. Did you know that? It's not in the Bible.

And Christians who know their Bible and more importantly know their theology know it's not in the Bible. God helps those who can't help themselves, that's what David's saying here at the end. This great king, this powerful man, guy who had wealth and armies and position and power and prestige says before God, 'I am poor and needy'. But he has God who is a great deliverer and so in his need he turns to the God who is the source of all abundance and in his weakness he turns to the God who is the source of all strength. Now that is not weak faith, that's strong faith, great faith, crying out urgently to God because the need is great.

Well, one last thought. The last line of the psalm takes us back to the note struck at the beginning and it's this, 'O Lord do not delay'. It's a cry that's often on the tongues of God's people. We ought to remind ourselves I suppose that that was the cry of the early church. Christians in the early days of Christianity following the resurrection of Jesus Christ were often persecuted by the authorities and they were often in desperate straits. And so you find their anguish and dismay echoed at various places in the Bible, among others in the book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation, last book of the Bible, written to people suffering persecution, you find these words Chapter 6 verse 10. The saints are praying, 'How long Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?'. What they're saying is that life is one long source of trouble and they long for deliverance, 'How long O Lord, how long?'. But you see, you turn to the very last verse, not of Psalm 70 but of the Bible, and what you find the Lord Jesus Christ saying is this, 'Lo, I am coming soon'.

Now that doesn't always seem soon to us. You see, God's timing is not our timing, with God a thousand years is as a day. Seem to be awfully stretched out for us but from God's point of view spoken by Jesus Christ coming soon. Seems like a long, long time but he's coming very soon. And if that's the case, what we must do despite our weariness and despite our frequent lack of faith is simply to endure and as we do, look to him who is the source of our strength and the power of our endurance and say, 'Let God be exalted', and rejoice in him.

That's the way the author of Hebrews in the 12th chapter wraps up that great chapter on faith, that is chapter 11. Chapter 11 he tells all the things that happened to the people of God, how they endured all kinds of things in faith, but in the 12th chapter concluding it he says this: 'Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let's throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let's fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God'.

We'll do that, even Jesus Christ our Lord will strengthen us and the day will come when we stand before his presence and we'll hear him say, 'Well done, well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord'. Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for this psalm, short and a repetition of what was said earlier, but as we study it and think about it we see how very pertinent it is to our lives, each of us, each one.

Our Father we have different problems or different situations we face, different causes for discouragement, but nearly all have some and some of us have many. And here in this psalm by that great king, even David, we're pointed in the direction as to what we ourselves should do. Our Father, we need to become people of prayer and we ask that you'll teach us what it really is to lay all these things before you urgently if necessary and find that in Jesus Christ we have him who is not only the author of our faith standing at the beginning, but the finisher of our faith who is standing at the end and who says and does not lie as he says it, 'Behold I am coming soon and my reward is with me'. Amen.

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