SPEAKER_00: It's written in Psalms seventy.
SPEAKER_00: Make haste, O God, to deliver me.
SPEAKER_00: O Lord, make haste to help me.
SPEAKER_00: Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life.
SPEAKER_00: Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Let them turn back because of their shame, who say, Aha, aha.
SPEAKER_00: May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.
SPEAKER_00: May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great.
SPEAKER_00: But I am poor and needy.
SPEAKER_00: Hasten to me, O God.
SPEAKER_00: You are my helper and my deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: O Lord, do not delay.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Today's preaching will be in Spanish.
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, the nerves.
SPEAKER_02: Good to see you all.
SPEAKER_02: As you as you know, we normally uh and as Mark was saying, uh normally during the summer we study the book of Psalms, and today uh we'll be studying the Psalm 70.
SPEAKER_02: Uh well it's good to be to be here.
SPEAKER_02: It feels really weird.
SPEAKER_02: Um the good thing is that I cannot see any of you, which is great.
SPEAKER_02: Injustice is uh something very common.
SPEAKER_02: It's a human experience, it's something that we see every day.
SPEAKER_02: We can see injustices uh across all layers uh uh of society.
SPEAKER_02: We can see injustices from international courts uh to our daily uh and to our daily life uh relationships.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we can find injustices uh committed every day, and we can see it in our uh in our relationships and in our in our everyday uh uh in everyday areas.
SPEAKER_02: For example, when we got when we go to work and we see that a coworker or a colleague takes credit for something that he or she didn't do just to get a promotion or some kind of reward.
SPEAKER_02: And I remember a few years ago the case of a of a woman, mother of three children, that uh she was going through a very uh difficult time, uh with serious uh economic problems.
SPEAKER_02: Uh she was arrested by the police uh by order of the court for not having her front uh garden.
SPEAKER_02: She wasn't taking care of her garden.
SPEAKER_02: Uh she said that of course she didn't have the money to take care of her uh of her garden because she didn't have the money to fed her children.
SPEAKER_02: And uh that was uh that was the reason.
SPEAKER_02: And she was detained for two nights until a landscaping uh company uh took period of her situation and fixed fixed her uh her garden.
SPEAKER_02: Many people of uh after this, many people were outraged and they were very angry about the situation.
SPEAKER_02: But this is not an isolated case.
SPEAKER_02: We can see these kind of cases every day.
SPEAKER_02: We can see how people commit crimes and they are not punished.
SPEAKER_02: We can see how the vulnerable uh are treated with contempt.
SPEAKER_02: And clearly, uh these type of cases show us something about ourselves, uh, it shows something about our society.
SPEAKER_02: Uh injustices are something constant in this world in which we live, and not only in the justice system, but in every area of our lives.
SPEAKER_02: The worst thing is that uh when we see uh these things, when we see these type of cases, and we see how injustices are committed, we have this feeling that things are not getting better.
SPEAKER_02: We feel that things are even getting worse.
SPEAKER_02: So we feel this frustration frustration, we we feel this anger inside of us that constantly floods us.
SPEAKER_02: And we we all have we all have uh stories about injustices, we all have suffered uh injustices at some point.
SPEAKER_02: But I think you get my point.
SPEAKER_02: Injustice is a common thing, it's a human experience, it's an everyday experience.
SPEAKER_02: And this is so because we are sinners living in a corrupted world, corrupted by sin.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes we may think that God does not hear our prayers, or he doesn't respond to the prayers, uh, or he doesn't do anything about injustice around us.
SPEAKER_02: However, in a disparate, in a desperate time, uh and with an urgent need for help, David showed us in this psalm three different reasons, or rather three different characteristics of God, God's character, that fills us with confidence to cry out to God in times of need, in times of despair, in times of justice.
SPEAKER_02: So let's go to the Psalm.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we can read in verse number one how David is starting showing uh his need.
SPEAKER_02: Make haste to God to deliver me, oh Lord, make haste to help me.
SPEAKER_02: So we see David's prayer with extreme desperation.
SPEAKER_02: Uh David cried out to God for help with a sense of urgency.
SPEAKER_02: So we see David's prayer with extreme despair.
SPEAKER_02: But David's confidence was not in his ability to get out of his problem, he was uh not trusting in his ability to defeat his enemies, he he wasn't trusting in uh in his fighting skills, but he was trusting that God will hear his prayer.
SPEAKER_02: And how do we know this?
SPEAKER_02: Because when we read scriptures, we can find different titles or different names that show us or describe the character of God.
SPEAKER_02: We can find some uh some names that describe God's divinity, his holiness, his eternity, his power, his provision.
SPEAKER_02: So this is particularly relevant in this text because David is calling the name of God.
SPEAKER_02: He's appealing to the name with which God introduced himself to his people.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think that David was just being uh spiritually optimistic about his situation, he was in danger, he was about to be to get murdered.
SPEAKER_02: He was not just crossing fingers and hoping for the best.
SPEAKER_02: He was trusting that God, uh he was trusting uh and he was confident in the in the assurance that God uh will will be hearing his prayer.
SPEAKER_02: He's confident in the assurance that God is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because he has been faithful in the past.
SPEAKER_02: So look how the focus changes in the name of God.
SPEAKER_02: So we've we see in verse 1 that David says, Make haste, O God, to deliver me.
SPEAKER_02: But in the second section, he uses the term Lord.
SPEAKER_02: So in the midst of the persecution, in the midst of the injustice that he's suffering, he trusted that God is a God who listens, a God who is near to his people, who listens to the prayer of his people, a God who is faithful in fulfilling his word and his promises.
SPEAKER_02: So when he mentioned the name of God, David has in mind something.
SPEAKER_02: He's remembering the promises of God in the past.
SPEAKER_02: He's confident that in the same way that he kept his word to Abraham, and he was uh and that he kept his word to the children of Abraham, God will be faithful to him too.
SPEAKER_02: He has in mind God's faithfulness in freeing his people from slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_02: He has in mind how he was faithful in leading his people through the desert for years, providing warmth and shade, water and breath, dwelling with them.
SPEAKER_02: He has in mind how God has been faithful in delivering the land that he promised to them.
SPEAKER_02: So there so David here is confident that uh the confidence of David, uh the confidence that David had didn't lie in the situation that he was living, in the situations around him, nor in his ability to go out of his problem.
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't trusting in his skills, but in the faithful character of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: He's trusting in God and his promises.
SPEAKER_02: So in the midst of the crisis, in the midst of the despair, he remembers that his trust is the God who keeps his word, in the Lord who is known by his fidelity to his people.
SPEAKER_02: God's faithfulness means that he is unchangeable in his character.
SPEAKER_02: He's unchangeable in his nature, he is faithful to his word.
SPEAKER_02: He promised to save his people and he will keep his promises forever.
SPEAKER_02: He's eternally trustworthy.
SPEAKER_02: No matter how improbable the situations or how improbable the promises might seem, nothing in heaven or in earth can stop God from fulfilling all that he promised to his people through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And as at the same time, this prayer is leading us to a better David, to a better and greater King.
SPEAKER_02: He's leading us to a prayer there in a garden.
SPEAKER_02: He's pointing us to a moment later in history, and he's leading us to a prayer of Jesus, a desperate prayer of Jesus, crying out to his father, his father for urgent help.
SPEAKER_02: We see how the Lord in weakness and fear is asking God, his father, for for deliverance.
SPEAKER_02: He's asking God, the Father, for help.
SPEAKER_02: But the word of God assures us that there is nothing created in heaven or in earth.
SPEAKER_02: There is nothing created, neither in the physical world or in the spiritual world that can separate us from the love of God.
SPEAKER_02: Because Christ suffered the abandoned abandonment of God so that you and I do not to be abandoned anymore.
SPEAKER_02: So when we go through uh injustices in our life, when we go through through the need of this life, when when fear invades our souls, and when we don't see our prayers answer when we need, when we don't see our prayers answered, seeking help or rescue from God, we can be sure that our prayers are still heard by the Father.
SPEAKER_02: You can be confident that in the midst of your situation, in the mid of the crisis, in the midst of the pain, when you feel that your faith is wavering, when you see that someone that you love is doubting God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_02: And when you struggle to believe what God affirms in his word about himself and about his promises, you can look back.
SPEAKER_02: You can look back how God has been faithful to you in the past.
SPEAKER_02: You can look back and see the faithfulness of God in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and you can look back and see the cross, how God keeps his promises, you can look back and see Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: God is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore we can trust that he listens to our prayers in times of need.
SPEAKER_02: But God is faithful, and that's why we can cry out to God in times of need.
SPEAKER_02: But there is another characteristic that we see in the text.
SPEAKER_02: Uh look how the verse says in the first part, verse uh verse, second verse.
SPEAKER_02: Uh let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life.
SPEAKER_02: So we see how he prayed that his enemies will feel confused and ashamed of what they did.
SPEAKER_02: The prayer that we see in this passage is a prayer for it's a prayer in dark days, it's a prayer in despair.
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's evident that David's enemies want him to die.
SPEAKER_02: This is not a psalm of praise and joy until well we will see the praise and joy after.
SPEAKER_02: But life is not good in this song.
SPEAKER_02: This reminds us that we live in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_02: That life is sometimes not good either.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we see the suffering around us.
SPEAKER_02: It reminds us the fragility of our lives, and it encourages us in the midst of our weakness.
SPEAKER_02: Life is not good in this song.
SPEAKER_02: It's be is instead is difficult.
SPEAKER_02: Very difficult, very difficult.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, the Psalm is an incessantly desperate prayer for God's help.
SPEAKER_02: David here is like a soldier entrenched in the middle of enemy fire, without escape, without resources, with sufficient resources and without the strength to continue fighting.
SPEAKER_02: And as we saw in the verse one, in the the immediate request that uh was to cry out for help.
SPEAKER_02: But in these verses that David is asking for something else.
SPEAKER_02: He's asking for justice.
SPEAKER_02: The second part of the verse 2 says, Let them be thrown back and brought to dishonor who delight in my heart.
SPEAKER_02: Let them turn back because of their shame, who say, Aha, aha.
SPEAKER_02: His enemies are not only wanted to hurt him, but they also wanted to mock at his pain.
SPEAKER_02: David's enemies are not only wishing for his death, that's not enough for them.
SPEAKER_02: They make fun of his agony, they make fun of his pain, they rejoice in his suffering, and they make fun of his despair.
SPEAKER_02: It's not only it's not only a deliberate act of aggression and violence against him.
SPEAKER_02: It's an enjoyment of his disgrace.
SPEAKER_02: The despair that David suffered in this time is evident.
SPEAKER_02: He had no way to get rid of the danger of his enemies.
SPEAKER_02: He could not escape the anguish and the impotence upon hearing the mockery.
SPEAKER_02: He could not escape the deep feeling of abandonment.
SPEAKER_02: And the truth is that there will be times where we cannot understand what God is doing.
SPEAKER_02: That we cannot understand the afflictions and the injustice around us.
SPEAKER_02: But we can rest that God is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: He has been in the past.
SPEAKER_02: When we don't understand what God is doing, we can be confident and we can trust because we know what he has done.
SPEAKER_02: And we can be confident that he has seen us in the middle of our pain.
SPEAKER_02: He heard our please.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't treat us.
SPEAKER_02: The good thing is that God is not like us.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't treat us like we are a file number that he needs to review later, as he throws our case into a pile of documents to be reviewed.
SPEAKER_02: He's just and every tear has been diligently stored by his hands.
SPEAKER_02: When moments of despair and injustice come into our lives, we can look at God's faithfulness in the past and we can look at the perfect justice of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: So the faithfulness of God, we can look back and see the faithfulness of God, but also we can look at the future and see how God one day will bring justice, perfect justice to this world.
SPEAKER_02: Probably we have all experienced that inner burning when we see the weak being oppressed, the vulnerable being mistreated, how authority takes advantage of their position and oppress the weak.
SPEAKER_02: And people are being when people are deceived.
SPEAKER_02: It's almost impossible not to feel that anger, that uh impotence.
SPEAKER_02: It's almost impossible not to feel that anger when you suffer at the hands of others.
SPEAKER_02: But it also that feelings reflect, those feelings reflect the character of the just God.
SPEAKER_02: Reflects the character of your creator, a God of justice.
SPEAKER_02: When we go through situations like this, we can look at the hands of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_02: We can look at the Lamb with pierced hands, and we can fix our eyes to Hims to His because He has paid the price of the injustice, and He one day will reign again with all truth and with all justice.
SPEAKER_02: And the truth is that it's sometimes it's easy to relate or to identify ourselves with the victims.
SPEAKER_02: It's easy to see the injustice around us, but many times we are not victims, but we are the perpetrators.
SPEAKER_02: That's why we needed a righteous savior.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus felt the deep despair and loneliness of being betrayed by and abandoned by his friends, abandoned by their father, condemned to an unjust death, and suffering the shame and the ridicule of his enemies.
SPEAKER_02: This was the greatest injustice in all history.
SPEAKER_02: And we cannot forget how Jesus being there in the cross, and as a man, he was crying out there, saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_02: The deepest injustice of men one day will be judged by the highest standard of justice, the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, at the same and at the same way that David was praying for his enemies, saying, Let them turn back.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus was praying for his enemies, saying, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing.
SPEAKER_02: The good thing is that God is not indifferent to our pain.
SPEAKER_02: He's not indifferent to our suffering.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't ignore the injustices that you have experienced, and we can face the life with this reality.
SPEAKER_02: That the gospel reminds us that the good news is that the suffering and the injustice will not last forever.
SPEAKER_02: In Jesus we hope for a new earth and a new heaven where justice will dwell with us.
SPEAKER_02: And the promise of salvation is not some is not something that is spiritually only.
SPEAKER_02: Salvation and eternal life implies a present reality as well.
SPEAKER_02: God's justice is present in our lives, even when the things are not, uh doesn't seem so.
SPEAKER_02: The justice of God implies that because God is just, we can pray for justice in times of injustice.
SPEAKER_02: And because God is just, we can we can face every circumstance of this life with hope.
SPEAKER_02: And in the face of any injustice that we suffer, even in our own life, because we know that one day the injustice and the suffering and the pain will have a limit and an end.
SPEAKER_02: So we can look back and see how God has been faithful in the past.
SPEAKER_02: And he will keep his promises forever.
SPEAKER_02: But also we can look at the future and see how God one day will bring justice to this world.
SPEAKER_02: He'd give us the assurance that there might be hope for this world we live in.
SPEAKER_02: And that hope is Christ and Christ alone.
SPEAKER_02: So you can cry out to God in times of need because he has been faithful and he is just.
SPEAKER_02: So now we see that David is praising God in the midst of the suffering.
SPEAKER_02: His prayer in verse 4 is totally different to the to the verse uh to the verse uh one, to his first prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Because something has changed in his heart.
SPEAKER_02: This verse is the climax of the psalm because uh is the most important part of the psalm because this this text, verse 4, exists in a sea of suffering.
SPEAKER_02: David doesn't say, once I get once I get rid of my enemies, then I'll start worrying about the joy of God's people and about the glory of God.
SPEAKER_02: This is a trench prayer, so because in a troubling and uncomfortable circumstances, it's a proclamation of joy and glory.
SPEAKER_02: This is a real world prayer, because the amazement of God is is as much for the dark days as for the bright ones.
SPEAKER_02: If God could move the David's heart in this extraordinary way, in the midst of his brokenness, he can do the same in the midst of our pain.
SPEAKER_02: God can put a renewed passion for the joy of his people and a passion for his glory in the midst of your brokenness.
SPEAKER_02: God can use hopeless and desperate situations to lead us to him.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 5 says, But I am poor and needy.
SPEAKER_02: Hasten to me, O God.
SPEAKER_02: You are my help and my deliverer.
SPEAKER_02: O Lord, do not delay.
SPEAKER_02: The quality of God's salvific character is the reason why Jesus came.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus didn't come to give us what we want.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't come to give us a life without suffering, without pain.
SPEAKER_02: But his mission to this world was to save sinners, to save his people.
SPEAKER_02: And we must recognize how poor and how needy we are of God and his salvation.
SPEAKER_02: Because no matter how many religious activities we can participate in, our greatest need is reconciliation with God.
SPEAKER_02: And the most wonderful thing is that God is a God who pleases to save sinners.
SPEAKER_02: He's a God who saves.
SPEAKER_02: So we can we can see how God has been faithful in the past.
SPEAKER_02: He and he will keep his word until the end.
SPEAKER_02: We can see how God will bring justice one day, and we see how God saves his people.
SPEAKER_02: Probably in the mid in the midst of illness, you have cried out to God for health.
SPEAKER_02: But in return you see more illness.
SPEAKER_02: In the midst of unemployment, you have cried out for to God for provision, but instead you see more need.
SPEAKER_02: If in your prayer you have cried out to God to take you out of your crisis and take you to the land of rest, but instead you see more suffering.
SPEAKER_02: You find yourself in a desert.
SPEAKER_02: You can remember that God is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: Even there.
SPEAKER_02: You can remember that God is there working.
SPEAKER_02: He and only He can bring life and salvation through suffering.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord takes care of you and He will give you all that you need, even if it's not what you expect, even if it's not what you want.
SPEAKER_02: But above all, in the midst of your affliction, He will transform your heart.
SPEAKER_02: He will conform you more and more to the image of His Son, to the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord know how weak we are, how small we are, how needy we are.
SPEAKER_02: So that we know that He is not surprised by your doubts, He's not surprised by your suffering, He's not surprised by our confusion at His actions and about His apparent silence.
SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, He reminds us that these doubts and these frustrations find an answer in Him and in a war and when we find ourselves in the middle of the injustice, we can firmly firmly hold, we can hold fast to the just character of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: David understood that He might not see an immediately way out of his problem.
SPEAKER_02: He understood that He probably He did he wouldn't find the reason of his suffering.
SPEAKER_02: But he trusted in the God who is faithful, faithful to keep His Word, faithful to keep His promises because He has been faithful in the past And He will be in the future.
SPEAKER_02: A God whose faithfulness will bring justice one day, a God who is pleased to save His people.
SPEAKER_02: This prayer of David evidently didn't change his situation.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't change the suffering.
SPEAKER_02: But it changed his heart.
SPEAKER_02: This is a hope for us.
SPEAKER_02: A hope that transcends our expectations and our desires.
SPEAKER_02: The hope that the Lord one day will bring justice.
SPEAKER_02: I hope that the Lord is faithful to his word and that our work is fulfilled in the work of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And it gives us hope because the Lord will bring justice one day.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe we we won't see it soon.
SPEAKER_02: We won't see probably the way out of our problems and our suffering.
SPEAKER_02: But the hope of eternity is that the Lord one day will return and that He will reign with perfect justice forever.
SPEAKER_02: And we can be confident that in the middle of our suffering, in the middle of the injustice that we have suffered, that we are experiencing, we can trust that God is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: He is a God who is just and he is pleased to save his people and he will do it forever.