-To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. To bring to remembrance.
1 Make haste, O God, to deliver me!
Make haste to help me, O LORD!
2 Let them be ashamed and confounded
Who seek my life;
Let them be turned back and confused
Who desire my hurt.
3 Let them be turned back because of their shame,
Who say, "Aha, aha!"
4 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
And let those who love Your salvation say continually,
"Let God be magnified!"
5 But I am poor and needy;
Make haste to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
If you look back at Psalm 40 you will find that these same verses of this Psalm are included within it, at the very end. So the commentaries say, well this is a repeat. But in my bible, repeat or not, it stands as Psalm 70. And we shouldn't blow past it as if we have already covered it. In nearly every language if you want to emphasize something you repeat it. This was also true in the Hebrew language. For instance, there are many things in the bible that are holy. But then the bible describes the Lord God as Holy, Holy, Holy because he is far beyond just holy. We do this same thing. We'll say something is really big. If we really want to make the point, we'll say really, really, really big!!!
We could do an entire study about why it is repeated and the significance of its repetition and then why it appears between the Psalms that ended up being labeled 69 and 71. One commentator suggests that when the Psalms were put together that this was probably a copy of Psalm 40 that got misplaced and put in here by accident. Knowing what I know about repetition in the bible, I figure if the Holy Spirit put it in here twice then it must be important enough to study twice. Repetition is an exclamation point, saying this is important, whether we understand it or not.
Let me tell you another problem with thinking this is somehow a mistake. A mistake would assume the Holy Spirit did not control every word of every line of every Psalm as well as every word of every other book of the bible. If you call this a mistake just because it is repeated it causes two problems: The first is, you may be missing a message that is important enough to be repeated. And second, if you call this a mistake then Satan will assist you in destroying every other word of the bible. He's been in the business of calling the word of God into doubt since the beginning. You can't cast doubt on part of the word without casing doubt on all of it. If you start tearing pages out of your bible you don't understand, find offensive or think don't belong, you might as well put it down. If you crack that door open just a smidge by allowing yourself to think there is a mistake in the bible, then Satan will kick the door down. He'll have you questioning everything.
Every word of scripture is there by the hand of God. It is there for His use and purpose. All scripture is God breathed. We should stand on it fully and completely. If we don't understand something, keep studying, pray for wisdom and knowledge. If something is repeated pay attention. God is trying to tell us something very important. So if your commentary calls this a mistake, your commentary is mistaken. It was written by a man and it's the thoughts of a man. Scripture is written by the Holy Spirit using the hands of men. And as hard as they may try, men cannot mess up what God is doing.
So what is this Psalm? Why is it important? Psalm 70 is a memorial. The purpose is to bring to remembrance. David is the author and we can only speculate what David was going through when he wrote this. While David wrote this because it was meaningful to him, this Psalm is a memorial for every life lived in a human body. Anyone could sing this song and relate to it at some point in their life.
We've all found our self in a tight spot when we looked to God and said, "Lord your going to have to get my out of here!" "I know I got here all by myself but I can't get myself out of this mess. Oh, and Lord, could you hurry?
David said......1 Make haste, O God, to deliver me! Make haste to help me, O LORD!
The Lord God is sovereign and in His sovereignty we are tested and tried in our lives. We are chastened and suffer in tribulation. All these things that happen are ordained by the Lord for His purpose. Some things He brings and other things Satan brings for his purpose but God allows them to happen to serve God's purpose. Everything that happens to us happens within the sovereign will of God. And in all things, God uses these circumstances for His glory. The question or test for David may have been, if his life was threatened, would he cry out to God? The answer seems to be 'yes'.
The question today or this week, or at some point in your life is, if your life is threatened will you cry out to the Lord?
Verse 2 says......
2 Let them be ashamed and confounded
Who seek my life;
Let them be turned back and confused
Who desire my hurt.
3 Let them be turned back because of their shame,
Who say, "Aha, aha!"
David was living through a time when his enemies were rising up against him. They were conspiring and making accusations against him for the purpose of seeking his life. They were trying to bring shame and confusion on David. He asked that God would let that shame and confusion go back on them. These people would mock and make accusations. The cry "Aha, aha" is a cry of joy over the misfortunes of another.
We are blessed to live in a land to have the freedoms to gather together and not have to look over our shoulder and worry about being attacked. But it may not be that way much longer. The world is getting to be a darker place by the day. Darkness is gathering together and they are all in agreement that we are the problem. They are getting bolder every day.
When the world doesn't give the darkness a fair shake or equal time they quickly cry foul. "It's not fair!" And the bleeding hearts run to their rescue. Every day, the Christian life pushed back another notch while Islam, Oprahanity and all the squishy denominations agree and point their fingers at biblical Christianity and say, "Aha, Aha!" There are many Christian brothers and sisters being persecuted all over the world.
Verse 4
4 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
And let those who love Your salvation say continually,
"Let God be magnified!"
This word for 'magnified' means strengthened or built up. If you took a hundred pieces of thread that could be broken quickly even by weak hands and you wove and twisted those hundred threads together you would make a rope that couldn't be broken. A hundred pieces of thread woven together is more than a hundred times stronger than the individual threads. This is what it means to be magnified.
David said, those who seek Him, they are a thread. They rejoice and are glad in Him. And those who love the salvation of God, they are a thread. Let all those come together and say continually, "Let God be magnified."
Let God be magnified. This isn't a call for God to become bigger and stronger than he is. It's a call for God to become bigger and stronger in the believers life. Let God be magnified.
This is a great picture of the church being the church. We are woven together as a bunch of individuals. Each of us have our strength, but we are just one. When we are woven together we are stronger than the sum of our parts because God has given us individual gifts and talents to be one complete body.
As the attacks on the church and the Christian life grow stronger it is all the more important that we grow stronger as the church. Let God be magnified in this church, in each of you, in our homes, in our families, at work and in all we do. Let God be magnified.
Verse 5
5 But I am poor and needy;
Make haste to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
David said, "God, I am....and You are." I am poor and needy, You are my help. This answers the question, "Would David cry out to God in his time of need?" Sure he would and did. He declared himself to be poor and needy, unable to improve his situation in any way. He looks to God alone saying, God, you are my help and deliverer. We are all poor, wretched, blind beggars crying out to the Lord. Our every breath and every heartbeat are at His mercy and we should thank Him for each one. In our minds, we often fool ourselves into thinking that we are in control of our life and our circumstances. How quickly that can change when something happens and we are reminded that our control is a thinly veiled illusion. Have you ever been driving along thinking you were control but then you put your foot on the brake and realize you are on ice. You're not in control of anything. It's an awful feeling when you misstep and for a split second think you are falling. There's a split second when you think you are out of control. It's terrible when we see something in life coming at us like a freight train and we are powerless to stop it. And it can be horrifying to hear those words from the doctor as he gives you the news about your health that you can't control.
We are all poor and needy. How awful would life be if we didn't have a greater hope? We find ourselves in all kinds of predicaments and its exciting when the Lord lifts us up and sets us on the Rock. How amazing it is when the God of the universe fawns over us and does a work in our life.
This Psalm is a memorial and was written to for remembrance. We are nothing and should never forget that He alone made us something. The Lord be magnified indeed! The Lord be magnified in my heart and my mind and my life. May the Lord grow in my understanding and may His presence permeate throughout every part of my life.
The Lord God creator and sustainer of all the universe thinks about me. He hears me. He responds to me. That's astonishing and exciting and awesome. If you finish reading this Psalm remembering these things and that the Lord is magnified in our life, then this Psalm has served its purpose.
David cried in verse one to "Make haste O Lord." We might cry, "Come quickly Lord Jesus!" Until then we remember and magnify Him in our life.
© 2011 Doug Ford
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