40 Days of Prayer, Day 39
Day 39, Wednesday, September 28
19 But You, O LORD, be not far off; O You my help, hasten to my assistance. 20 Deliver my soul from the sword, My only life from the power of the dog. 21 Save me from the lion’s mouth; From the horns of the wild oxen You answer me. 22 I will tell of Your name to my brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. 23 You who fear the LORD, praise Him; All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel. 24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard. 25 From You comes my praise in the great assembly; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him. Psalm 22:19-25
The Joyful Gathering of the Contrite
As we have been reflecting on Psalm 22, we now turn our attention to the joyful conclusion. This psalm opens with such despair. However, the mournful cry of the psalmist now comes full circle in this Messianic poem. Psalm 22 opens with a dramatic weight of feeling abandoned by God. The psalmist feels alone as trouble encircles his experience. There is a plea for help from God. The psalm recounts God’s character and God’s deliverance in the past as a source of comfort. God’s essential trustworthiness becomes the source of calming assurance. The writer reflected on the historical help from God for the nation of Israel. If God saved the nation from their troubles, then He can and will save me too. Psalm 22:21 contains a very brief but climatic conclusion to the first 21 verses, “You answered me!” Now, the psalmist, having been rescued, turns our attention to the proper response to our God because of His deliverance. Our proper response is praise. Sorrow has been turned to rejoicing. The sense of abandonment transforms into a sense of God’s faithfulness in rescuing those who seek Him. The isolation of the psalmist is now juxtaposed with the corporate gathering. The psalmist cried out in isolation. Now God is present and so are God’s people as they gather together. And though we may worship God in private for His deliverance in our times of trouble, this writer takes this opportunity for sharing all that God has done with the community of believers. “I will tell of Your name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You.” When God provides for our needs and rescues us from trouble, we should instinctively praise Him. We should also instinctively share of His faithfulness. The scene turns from the mournful cry to God in private to the joyful praise of God in public.
In many ways this portrait depicts each and every person who comes to saving faith in Christ. We are pressed in our hearts with the trouble that has come to us. The trouble ultimately comes from the works of our own hands. We have created this crisis in our rebellion against Him. Our sin destroys our relationship with God and damages our relationship with others. Then we discover that Jesus Christ has taken that trouble on Himself. He cried out from this very psalm, “My God why have You forsaken Me?” He cried out with the words of this psalm in our place. We were forsaken by God because God is holy and we are sinful. But Christ became forsaken for us. We read of God’s deliverance and hear of His victory over sin and death because Christ took on our brokenness. We then cry out to God to save us from our sin, shame and condemnation. He hears our cry. He saves us. He transfers our sin from our account to that of Christ. Jesus Christ bears the just punishment for our sin. Were it not for Christ, we would be abandoned by God because of His holy character. He cannot and will not allow the unrighteous to be in His presence. However, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News of His life and ministry, is the rescue mission by God for sinners. God is a God of relationships. He created us for the purpose of seeing, knowing and experiencing a life with Him both now and forever. Our sin creates a massive barrier to that purpose. He has moved heaven and earth in order to save us. He did beyond what any could even comprehend. He sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Christ is the Savior of the world; however, He saves each one of us as an individual. Each person must come to Him on the basis of faith in Christ. Each person must come to a place of knowing and sensing the weight of the impact of our sin. Each one of us must receive God’s gracious offering of forgiveness, grace, mercy and eternal life by receiving Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. No one else can do that for us. There is no group entrance into the relationship. There is no earning entrance into the relationship by good works or religious acts. God restores the relationship in the way that maximizes His glory and maximizes our joy. He rescues us by His own power. We simply receive His offer of salvation on the basis of faith in Christ. Out of our brokenness we come to a place in our life were we believe in His faithfulness. Out of His faithfulness He makes the broken ones whole.
God is faithful. He hears the tender cry of the heart, the cry for help and mercy. He has proven His faithfulness over and over throughout the history of Israel. He has proven His faithfulness throughout the ministry of Christ. He has proven His faithfulness in His receiving of the death of Christ for our sin. He demonstratively declared His acceptance of the offering of Christ in our place by raising Christ from the dead and seating Christ at His right hand. Anyone who believes in Christ, just as this psalmist, can say “Please Save me…and you answered me! For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.” God brings the repentant sinner into the assembly. The family of God, the church, is the gathering of forgiven individuals. We are saved by individually putting our faith in Christ, but God brings each individual into a community. The church now provides the contrite ones a place to share with one another concerning the rescue mission of God. Thus comes the call to worship from the psalmist. “You who fear the Lord, praise Him!”
Prayer Focus
You, O God, have rescued me. I was desperately needing Your rescue of my life. Sin, shame, guilt and separation from You all dominated my world. But God, I see Your faithfulness in Christ. He has paid my debt. He has been abandoned for me so that I might come into a relationship with You. I praise You God for who You are and for what You have done. May Your rescue of my life be ever on my lips as a theme of my praise of Your great name. May the church gather week after week with this goal in mind, that all who fear You will praise You, Amen.
From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice
Here can be no concord, no communion, no agreement, no fellowship. Here is enmity on the one side, and flaming justice on the other (2 Cor 6:14-16; Zech 11:8). And what delight, what pleasure, can God take in such men. None at all; no, though they should be mingled with the best of the saints of God; yes, though the best of saints should supplicate for them. Thus, says Jeremiah, 'Then said the Lord to me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, ' that is, to pray for them, 'yet my mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth' (Jer 15:1). Here is nothing but open war, acts of hostility, and shameful rebellion, on the sinner's side; and what delight can God take in that? If God will bend and buckle the spirit of such a one, he must shoot an arrow at him, a bearded arrow, such as may not be plucked out of the wound: an arrow that will stick fast, and cause that the sinner falls down as dead at God's foot (Psa 33:1, 2). Then will the sinner deliver up his arms, and surrender up himself as one conquered, into the hand of, and beg for the Lord's pardon, and not till then; I mean not sincerely. And now God has overcome, and his right hand and his holy arm has gotten him the victory. Now he rides in triumph with his captive at his chariot wheel; now he glories; now the bells in heaven do ring; now the angels shout for joy, yea, are bid to do so, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost' (Luke 15:1-10). Now also the sinner, as a token of being overcome, lies groveling at his foot, saying, 'Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies, whereby the people fall under thee' (Psa 45:3-5).