Psalms 69:21
Psalms 69:21, “They gave
me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”
This verse in Psalms is a prophecy about the
Messiah and His suffering on the Cross. The Gospel of John 19:28-30 says, “After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now
accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith,
I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put
it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said,
It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the
ghost.”
God uses physical things to symbolize spiritual
things. Certainly the details surrounding Jesus crucifixion teach us some
important spiritual truths. The key thing about vinegar for example is that it
is very bitter. The fact that Jesus was given vinegar helps us to understand
the bitterness of His suffering and death on the cross. Can you imagine serving
God faithfully all your life, sacrificing everything then dying a cruel death
and finding yourself taking on the sins of the world and being separated from
God and facing His wrath? This is exactly what Jesus did.
Anyone who follows Jesus will certainly have the
opportunity to taste of the bitterness of the cross. The servant is not greater
than his master. But no matter how bitter the gospel road might seem for you at
times you can be thankful and encourage in the fact that it will never be as
bitter as it was for Jesus.
It is a very sad shame that there are many people
who do not come to Christ because of fear of suffering and there are many who
stop following Christ for the same reason. It is a privilege and an honour to suffer for Christ.
The truth is suffering is part of life. There is
no way around it. One way of looking at is that you have two choices in life
you can live life for yourself and suffer for your sins or you can live life
for Jesus and face the suffering of the gospel road. Either way you are going
to suffer. But it is much better to suffer for righteousness.
Philippians 3:7-10 says, “But what things were gain to me, those I counted
loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win
Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the
law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is
of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and
the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”
There is no
fellowship in this world that compares to the fellowship found in the gospel.
Those who taste of the vinegar of the gospel will always find that after the
bitterness comes great glory and everlasting joy.
Jesus’ death was a bloody death. All that blood
pouring out of His body should make us think about how passionate God is in
pouring out His love on us. When you do taste of the vinegar of the gospel
instead it making you bitter it should help you to understand and to appreciate
just what it is that Christ has done for you.
The next several verses in Psalms give us some
interesting details about the future fate of those who reject the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Psalms 69:22-28, “Let their table become
a snare before them: and that which should have been for their
welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, that they see
not; and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon
them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be
desolate; and let none dwell in their tents. For they persecute him
whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast
wounded. Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy
righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be
written with the righteous.”
These verses give a good description of what
happens to people that reject the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel becomes a
stumbling block to them. They turn farther into darkness. And eventually they
must face the judgment of God.
The worst decision in the world that a person can
make in their life time is to reject the gospel of Jesus Christ when the Holy
Spirit comes to them and whispers to them of their need for salvation. Even
though you are created in the image of God, even though God loves you with a
great eternal love and sent His Son Jesus to suffer and die for your sins, even
though God has a glorious and wonderful future in eternity that He wants to
give to you, you can choose to reject all of that and to go your own way in
life. God is not going to stop you. God is not going to force you.
Psalms 69 verses 27 and 28 teach us some very
important truths in regards to the gospel. Verse 27 says, “Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into
thy righteousness.”
Even though man has a free will God has a free
will too. And God’s free will is more powerful than man’s free will. God is
always the one with the final decision. God decided how He would author the
plan of salvation. You don’t decide how you can get into heaven. God has
decided that. God is the potter and we are the clay.
Yes man has a free will but man is not all
powerful like God is. Man gives himself too much credit and often thinks to much or you could say thinks to
highly oh himself in regards to his own free will. For example look at it this
way. You had no say in the fact that you born into this world. God decided
that. And you have no say in the fact that one day you are going to die.
Looking at it this way you should realize that you have much less power and
control than you think you do. God lets us make decisions but then He reinforces
those decisions.
Jesus said in Matthew
Romans 9:18, “Therefore
hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”
Why would God reinforce the decisions that we
make? He does it because He is all powerful and He can do whatever He wants to
do. Man has a free will and man enjoys His free will. God certainly enjoys His
free will too. Remember God is the potter and we are the clay.
Look at it
this way, when a person decides to turn from their sins to Jesus, God
reinforces that decision. God promises that that person will be conformed to
the image of God. God promises that He will never leave nor forsake that
person. And God makes many other promises in the Bible that show when a person
decides to follow Christ God reinforces that decision. Why would God not do the
same for a person who turns away from Him; do the same in the sense of
reinforcing their decision?
We sometimes do not think about the fact that God
is a being with feelings and emotions. It certainly hurts God when He does all that He does for a person reaching out to them with His
love and they reject Him.
Just think of it in human terms. If a human being
offered their love to another person and that person whole heartedly rejected
them what would you expect to happen? Most people when they chose to reject
Jesus do so very strong willed, very callously with no love or care or regard
for what Jesus did for them. Often they do so with great anger and hatred in
their hearts towards God. Why should God keep coming to a person over and over
and touching their heart if their heart is hardened and they are just going to
reject Him?
We may not understand all the reasons why God
decides to reinforce the decisions that we make in our hearts when it comes to
whether we will follow Him or not but we certainly can understand the purpose
behind it.
Romans 9:17, “For the
scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same
purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my
name might be declared throughout all the earth.”
Romans 9:22-23, “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his
power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the
vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.”
God’s purpose is to show forth His power and the
riches of His glory. This should be a dire warning to people. If you harden
your heart against God; God may very well decide to reinforce that decision
just like He did with Pharaoh in the book of Exodus. Even though Jesus suffered
and died for the sins of the world opportunity is still limited. At the very
least opportunity is limited to the time a person is alive on this earth. But you
do not know how many times God is going to come to a person in their life and
knock on the door of their heart and invite them to repent of their sins and
turn to Jesus. It may be one time in their life time or it may be 1000 times.
That is a decision that God alone makes on a case by case basis with each
individual in the world. He made us. He knows our hearts and He knows the
future. He knows the decisions we are going to make ahead of time. He is the
potter and we are the clay. And will either make you into a vessel of mercy or
a vessel of wrath. So you had better choose wisely when it comes to the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Verse 27 says, “Add
iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness.” This
is exactly what happens to a person who turns away from Jesus. They go on
sinning and sinning and unless they at some point repent and turn to Jesus, they
will never find themselves clothed in the righteousness of God. This means that
one day they will be destined to die and to stand before the judge of the whole
earth still lost in their sins. Looking at it this way a person who determined
to go their own way in life instead of God’s way is better off dying young than
living to be old. Just how many sins a person will have
committed by the time they are 80 years old than by the time they are 20?
They are just going to add iniquity unto their iniquity and hell will be that
much hotter for them.
Psalms 69:28, “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not
be written with the righteous.” The Book of life is mentioned quite a
few times in the New Testament mostly in the last book of the Bible the book of
Revelation.
If a person’s name can be blotted out of the book
of life then that means there name is in the book of life to begin with. This
does not mean that a person can lose their salvation. But rather it shows us
just how much God loves us and wants us to be saved.
It makes sense to think that every time God
creates a soul He puts their name in the book of life. God wants everyone to be
saved. Jesus died for all the world. God looks to the
future and hopes that everyone will make the right decision. And God does everything
He can to work in a persons life to try and get them
to repent of their sins. The fact that God has a book which He calls the book
of life and which has everyone’s name in it shows us just how possible it is
for a person to be saved. Everyone has the opportunity.
Psalms 69:29 says, “But
I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high.”
When I
think about everything that salvation involves I find it very strange anyone
would reject God’s great eternal gift. A person who trusts in Jesus goes from
being poor and naked spiritually to becoming immeasurably rich in the
righteousness of God. In these verses the term used is, “set me up on high.”
When you turn to Jesus from your sins you go from
being alienated from God to being part of the family of God. You go from being
poor spiritually to becoming a joint heir with Christ. In other words you
inherit all that God owns. And God owns all the
universe. You become a King and a Priest with God. Revelation
Psalms 69:30-32, “I will
praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. This
also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bullock that hath horns
and hoofs. The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall
live that seek God. For the LORD heareth the poor,
and despiseth not his prisoners. Let the heaven and
earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moveth therein.”
Considering all that God has done and will do for
us we should certainly be thankful to Him. God certainly considers praise and
thanksgiving to Him much more important than religious ceremony. God certainly
deserves praise and there certainly are infinite reasons to praise God. We can
praise God for giving us life, for giving us good things in our life. We
certainly can praise God for sending His Son Jesus to die for our sins.
In talking about praising God and giving thanks
to God what is specifically mentioned here is that God heareth
the poor and despiseth not the prisoner. There are
always a lot of poor people in the world regardless of which country you live
in. For the most part people that are rich and people that are powerful and
governments themselves do not care about the poor but care about increasing
their riches and their power. God cares about the poor though and God will
certainly help those that trust in Him.
Of course
spiritually speaking we are all poor without the righteousness of Christ.
Without Christ we are all prisoners of sin. God will hear the prayer of anyone
who cries out to Him to be released from the bondage of sin and who cries out
to him to be pulled out of the poverty of their own righteousness and brought
into the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Psalms 69:35-36 says, “For
God will save
Psalms
69 ends with God talking about the great future that He has planned for
God
loved Abraham. Abraham had great faith in God. And therefore God made special
promises to him. Genesis
This should be an important lesson to
us about faith. Faith pleases God and the more faith you have in God the
greater are the things that God will do through you.
Of course truth faith in God begins at
the cross of
___________________________________________________
Copyright; 2017 by Bruce
Creech
All Rights Reserved