A Study in Psalms - Psalm 71

I want to welcome you back to our Summer of Psalms. We only have two more to go after tonight, Psalm 103 and Psalm 130, but welcome back. Our psalm tonight is Psalm 71, and if you want to turn there. I wish we could read this several times. It's 24 verses, so it's a little bit long, but this is a psalm that you need to read one, two, or three times to get the feel of it, because this is a psalm I feel. I feel old, and this is about an old. And you notice in verse 8 and verse 19, he mentions the old age.

You'll notice that when you read it. So let's begin with Psalm 71. There is no superscription on this psalm. Verse 1. In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame.

In your righteousness, deliver me and rescue me. Incline your ear to me and save me. Be to me a rock of refuge to which I may continually come. You have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. Upon you I have leaned from before my birth. You are he who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you. I have been a portent to many, but you are my strong refuge.

My mouth is filled with your praise and with your glory all the day. Do not cast me off in the time of old age. Forsake me not when my strength is spent. For my enemies speak concerning me. Those who watch for my life consult together and say, God has forsaken him. Pursue and seize him, for there is none to deliver him. O God, be not far from me. O God, make haste to help me. May my accusers be put to shame and consumed with scorn and disgrace. May they be covered who seek my hurt. But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.

My mouth will tell of your righteous acts and your deeds of salvation all the day. For their number is past my knowledge. With the mighty deeds of the Lord God, I will come. I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone. O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those who come. Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the high heavens.

You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? You have made me see many troubles and calamities, will revive me again. You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again. And from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God. I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O holy one of Israel. My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you, my soul also which you have redeemed.

And my tongue will talk of your righteousness, help all the day long. For they have been put to shame and disappointed who sought to do me hurt. Let's pray. Father, thank you that we can come together and study another psalm tonight. And I just ask that you would teach us that we would leave here today knowing more of you and what it is we are to do. In Jesus' name, amen. Am I the only one here who, when they get a prescription bottle now, has to take their phone and take a picture of it and then do this to see what it says?

Am I the only one here? Anybody else? Raise your hand. Okay, you are old. You are old. I don't mean to insult you, but you know you're old when you buy those grocery bags for $0.99 and $4.99 and $9.99 and then you go to the store and forget them and you still have to pay the $0.10. You know you're old. You know you're old when you buy your clothes and your groceries at the same store. Costco? Yeah. You been there yet? You know you're old when you buy pills to improve your memory, but you forget where you put them.

You know you're old when almost everything hurts and what doesn't hurt doesn't work. You know you're old when you're young at heart, but you can't say the same thing for your other organs. And you know you're old when you walk past the bathroom and you say, hmm, I might as well go. You know you're old when you don't have Alzheimer's, but you have some timers. Sometimes you remember, sometimes you don't. Whether we like it or not, for most people, the senior years are full of uncertainties, aren't they?

Years, sometimes we grow helpless. That doesn't mean that everything suddenly falls apart. We're all different. Some of God's senior citizens are very strong. They don't seem to suffer anything. We have people in our church in their 90s and 94 serving the Lord, driving. But most of us would agree that when you get to a certain age, we start to slow down. It takes longer to get things done, doesn't it? And we can joke about that saying that says we're reaching the metallic age. I have silver in my hair, gold in my teeth, iron in my vitamin pills, and lead in my shoes.

Some of you can relate to that. The type of psalm tonight isn't a lament psalm, a psalmist crying out to God. It's a very personal psalm. You may have to read it again slowly, but when you read it again, notice the word I, I, I, 13 times in my ESV translation, and me, me, me, another 22 times.

So that's 35 personal pronouns right there. And then we have the word my, my, my, an adjective, 24 times. So this is a very, very personal psalm, and I think many of us can relate to it. One commentator said, And I hope that will help tonight. We don't have a superscription tonight, so we don't know the name of the author. It's one of the 50 that we don't have an author in the top. One commentator made a very good case that perhaps Jeremiah wrote this psalm, and a lot of other commentators believe David.

Most of the psalms that don't have a superscription with an author, they ascribe to David. But we don't know. But I think I'll tell more about who I think it is later. Spurgeon said, We have here the prayer of an old-age believer who is in holy confidence of faith, strengthened by a long and remarkable experience, pleads against his enemies, and asks further blessings for himself. Anticipating a gracious reply, he promises to magnify the Lord exceedingly. Benjamin Disarelli, who was the prime minister of Great Britain many years ago, and they say he was one of the most brilliant members in the House of Commons in England.

When he looked back over his successful life, he said, Youth is a mistake, manhood is a struggle, old age a regret. Not so for the psalmist who wrote this psalm. His foundation was well laid. In verse 5 he says, For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. The Bible has many verses about the value and worth of older people. Proverbs 16.31, Gray hair is the crown of glory, it is gain in a righteous life. Proverbs 17.6 says, Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers.

And 2 Corinthians 4.16 says, So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. If you have an outline tonight, there's three simple points. Number one, confidence in God in our old age, verses 1 to 8.

Point number two, calling out to God in our old age, verses 9 to 13. And then number three, commitment to God in our old age, verses 14 to 24.

So let's look at number one. Confidence in God in our old age, verses 1 to 8. Now, we know from the New Testament, we New Testament believers know that God will never leave us, nor forsake us. That's Hebrews 13.5. But here we have seven metaphors that we're going to talk about. But I just want you to know that Psalm 31, verses 1 to 3, are almost the exact same as the first few verses here.

And that's quite common in the Psalms. There are quite a few Psalms where they copy from one another, or if David wrote it, he'll use this verse here. So if you want to look up Psalms 31, 1 to 3, it's exactly the same as the first few verses here.

But our first metaphor is my refuge. Our refuge is in God. It says in verse 1, In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame.

The word refuge is in verses 1, 3, and 7, and it just means to go to a place where one will find safety, rest, or comfort. It's implying that the place of refuge is a place to be trusted and to be kept safe. And we know that place is in God. He says, In you, O Yahweh, do I take refuge. What a wonderful verse. What a wonderful sentence to begin the Psalm. This word refuge is used 85 times in the Bible, including 38 times in Psalms. And what's interesting is there are 7 Psalms that begins with verse 1.

7 of the 150 Psalms begin with this, Psalm 7, 1. Oh, Lord, my God, in you do I take refuge. Psalms 11, 1. In the Lord, I take refuge. Psalm 16, 1. Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. Psalm 31, 1. In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Psalms 46, 1. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalms 57, 1. Be merciful to me, O God. O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge. And lastly, Psalms 71, 1. In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame.

Psalmist is concerned here at his old age that he won't be put to shame. He wants to finish well. And that's the goal tonight. That's the main idea, that we finish well. He's near the end of his life, and he doesn't want to be put to shame. And his refuge is in God. He's a worship leader probably in the temple, and he knows that knowing God will take refuge in him. You know the verse in Jeremiah 9, 23. Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, righteousness in all the earth.

For in these things I delight, declares the Lord. Jeremiah knew it, and the psalmist knows it. Knowing God, he can take refuge in him. Number two, God is our redeemer.

The psalmist says, you're my redeemer. Now he doesn't actually use the word redeemer, but notice verse two.

He gives four verbs here. Deliver me, rescue me, incline your ear to me, and save me. And notice the psalmist is not saying, have mercy on me, oh God, like the tax collector in Luke says it.

He's not saying, in your grace, save me, but he's saying, in your righteousness, redeem me. And the word in your righteousness is listed five times in this psalm. Verse two, verse 15, verse 16, verse 19, and verse 24. So that's a very important saying. He keeps saying, in your righteousness, in your righteousness, in your righteousness. It's so important that you notice that.

The psalmist rests everything in the character of God and on the compassion of God. Because it's impossible for God to let a man down. Whoever puts his trust in the living God will not let him down. When all else fails, God is still in the business, and mighty to save. So the psalmist has four verbs here, and three of them, deliver me, rescue me, and save me, are words to express salvation. Now, we mentioned before, salvation in the psalm, or salvation in the Old Testament, means deliverance. So those three words also mean delivering me for salvation.

And then the other one, incline your ear to me, he's just crying out to God, listen to me. Stoop down and listen to me, oh God. So God has redeemed us, if you have Jesus Christ in your heart tonight. So he's a my redeemer. Number three, a very famous one here, my rock.

He says, be to me a rock of refuge, which I may continually come. You have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. And there are at least 133 times in the Bible it describes God or Jesus as being my rock, and 30 times in Psalms alone. We studied Psalms 19 a couple months ago, remember that? Psalms 19.4, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. This is not a little rock, this is like the rock of Gibraltar, magnificently high.

In Israel there would be mountains with gigantic rocks, and they would look up and they would think of that as the metaphor. Psalms 78.35 says, they remembered that God was their rock, the most high God, their redeemer. And of course in the New Testament, you're all familiar with Matthew 7, 24 and 25, the Sermon on the Mount ends with those verses, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock, and the rock is Jesus Christ, of course.

So he's my rock, number three. Number four is my rescue me. My translation begins with in verse four, rescue me, O God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. So it's the second time he's asked God to rescue him, verse two was the other time, and it's quite apparent that the psalmist has a lot of enemies, and he needs the Lord's help, and he needs the Lord's protection.

In verse four he says, rescue me from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. In verse 10 he says, for my enemies speak concerning me, they watch for my life, they consult together, they're perhaps going to try to kill him. Verse 13 says, may my accusers be put to shame, those who seek to hurt me. And the last verse in the psalm, verse 24, for they have been put to shame and disappointed, those who sought to hurt me. So who are these enemies? Who are these people? It's hard to know, because we don't have a superscription here, we don't know for sure who wrote it, but we know this, the psalmist is a poet, he's a musician, he's a singer, he plays the harp and the flute, it's probably that he leads worship in the temple.

So he's probably a very important worship leader in the temple. So, the question begets, is he a worship leader during good times or bad times? So if he's a worship leader while King Hezekiah was the leader, or Asa or Jehoshaphat, that'd probably be a good time to be the worship leader, right? It'd be a joyful time, time of celebration and joy, because you had a godly king, and Israel would be following that godly king. And of the 20 kings Israel had, only 8 of them were considered good. But what if he was the worship leader under Manasseh, or Aboham, or Abja, or others like that?

Those guys were putting idols in the temple, those guys were changing worship. So he probably has a lot of enemies, and he's probably serving at not a good time. So that's conjecture. So he's calling out to God to rescue him. In times of need, he turned to God. And he uses the word here, God Elohim, and that's God the creator, the sustainer of the universe. Next, my reliance. He says, For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. God alone is the psalmist's hope and trust. The word hope is used 160 times in the Bible, and at least 28 times in the Psalms.

He's the only hope we can rely on. We talked a lot about that last week in Psalm 58. The Lord is our hope, right? So the noun here used for hope, the Hebrew word, is the same title as the national anthem of modern Israel. If I can pronounce it correctly, Hatikvah. The national anthem of Israel literally means, the hope. That's what that word is here. Psalms 146.5 says, Blessed is he whose help is the glad of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord. And he continues that last part of verse 5 and verse 6.

He mentions, From my youth, upon you I have leaned before my birth, you who took me from the mother's womb. So this is a godly man, not just in his old age, but from his childhood, from his teenage years, middle years, to his senior years. He's been trusting God. He could look back and recall how God had provided for him, how God had protected him, how God had met his needs in many situations. Experience taught him to trust God. That's why God was his reliance. God never let him down, and he'll have reliance on him now.

And he finishes verse 6 with the words, My praise is continually of you. Now, this is the first time the psalmist mentions praise, and I'll talk more about that later, because he's going to mention that word six times.

So God is my reliance. And then number 6, My role model. So the Lord is my refuge, my redeemer, my rock, my rescuer, my reliance. But number 6 isn't really about God. It's about the psalmist speaking about himself, that he is the Lord's role model. So number 6 is different from the other 6 things we have. He says, I have been a portent to many, but you are my strong refuge. Now, I didn't have a clue what that word meant. I've never used that word in my life. Portent. It's a very difficult and seldom used word.

I only found it three times in the Bible. It means something that foreshadows a coming event. It's a prophetic indication or of significance. So the ESV says portent. The NID says sign. The New King James says wonder. And the LSB and NASB, I think they got it probably better, says I'm a marvel. I'm a marvel to many. In Isaiah 20 verse 3, it says, Then the Lord said, As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for these three years, as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush. So it's a hard word to explain because it can be used in a good way and it can be used in a bad way.

One commentator said, I think it's best to understand it as applying to his whole wonderful life of trials and blessings of perils and deliverances such as it did not only fall to the lot of men. So he's a marvel to a lot of people. This is not an ordinary life. That's why I think he's an important worship leader in the temple. A lot of people are looking up to him. He's well known. And they're watching him. And he is God's role model. People are watching him to see how he handled his problems. Would he run and hide?

Would he compromise with the evil kings or the other worship leaders? And you know, those worship leaders would become later the scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus would attack them. We mentioned about the woes. So I mentioned this writer is probably a high profile or important person. People knew him. And they saw the things that had happened to him. So what he's saying is, I'm a role model for the Lord. He had a long life. And even at the end of his life, it's still full of trials, difficulties. But because God is his refuge.

Notice in verse 3, God was a rock of refuge. Here God is a strong refuge. So this psalmist can be an example. He can be a marvel, a sign, a wonder to many. He wants to finish well. There's no quitting. There's no retirement. There's no compromise for him. When I read this verse, it reminded me of one of the great examples of a role model for us. And that would be a polycarp. In February 22, A.D. 156, one of our early church fathers, great man, polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna, he was killed. And according to church history, he was betrayed by members of his own household, captured, taken to the Colosseum in Rome, where the local procouncil attempted to coax him into betraying and giving sacrifices to Jesus.

And polycarp said those words that you probably are familiar with. The procouncil said, Take the oath and I will let you go. Just revile Christ. Polycarp answered with these words, For eighty and six years, I have been his servant, and he has done me no wrong, and how can I now blaspheme my King who saved me? So polycarp, like the psalmist, was a role model. They end up burning polycarp to death, but he was a role model. Number seven, my rejoicing. He says, My mouth is filled with your praise and with your glory all the day.

So this is the second time of six times he mentions praise in this psalm. He's continually praising the Lord. If you want to know, it's verse 6, verse 8, verse 14, two times in verse 22, and one time in verse 23. Three times in this psalm we have the words, All the day. In verse 8, in verse 15, and 24. You know, one thing we must learn to do, young or old, is to learn to live a day at a time depending on Christ, all the day. And one of the things we can do is we can rejoice all day. Philippians 4.8 is a verse you're probably familiar with.

We read it a lot on Sunday. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellent, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

We fill our minds with social media, with news, with our troubles, our sorrows, our griefs. The psalmist was thinking about what can I praise God for now? You know, in our old age, there's a tendency for old folks to become critical, to become bitter, and to spend a lot of time complaining. That's not what this psalmist did. We can have confidence in God in our old age. In our old age, we're often considered about our comforts, getting rid of our anxieties, but God is concerned on still working on our character, even to the old, old days that we have.

And this means that we can praise God in our circumstances, even if we don't particularly like the circumstances we are in. So that's confidence in God in our old age. Let's look at point number two, calling out to God in our old age.

So here the psalmist, you've already heard words, rescue me, deliver me, incline your ear to me God, save me. This entire 24 verses is nothing but a prayer. It's a lament prayer to God crying out. But here you really see it. And he says number one there, God do not forsake me.

And there's two things he asks God not to forsake him. He says I'm aged in verse nine and I'm being attacked in verse 10 and 11. You know, in our old age, the pressures of life can assail us as never before. We pray sometimes and it seems like nothing happens. Or worse, we lose our desire to pray. Sometimes it seems that God is withdrawn and not answering our prayers. Here the psalmist cries out in verse nine, don't cast me off in the time of old age when my strength is spent. So what is this psalmist fearing?

Well, if you go through this psalm, you know, there's a lot of turmoil in old age. The psalmist is fearing death in verses 10 and 11 and verse 20. So he fears that maybe the end is coming soon. Verse 1 and 21 imply that he's losing a loss of honor and dignity. Maybe he's lost his position of worship. Honor. Verse 9, he's lost his strength. He's not as strong as he used to be. And then his sense of vulnerability is another thing that's causing him problems in his old age. And we see that in verse 4, 11, and 18.

And then he needs a forced dependence. He needs a refuge. And we talked about that in verse 6, 9, and 18. And then lastly, he fears that his life might be devalued in verse 7 and 11. I wish we had time to go through all those, but he's going through some turmoil in his old age. And then number 2, he says, I'm being attacked. He talks about, my enemies are those who watch for me, consult together. They say God is forsaken. Pursue, seize him, for there's none to deliver him. One commentator said, the speaker might have expected mature age to bring exemption from such attacks.

Don't we think that? We think that we're older, we'll retire, we'll have a good life sitting on the porch in the rocking chair. But that's not the case in this psalm. His enemies were present as much at the end of his life as they were at the beginning. Now you and I might not have physical enemies, but we certainly have our troubles, don't we? Every week, you know, it's not a trouble, but every week I look at the CC bullet and see our budget.

How are we doing on the budget? Are we going to make budget? How are we doing? We have medical bills that are going astronomically crazy. I was watching the Nextdoor app this week and people were getting their electric bills and it was three times the price of what their normal electric bill was. Maybe your 401 crashed this week with the stock market on Monday. But we have health problems. We have senior problems. Who's going to take care of our parents? Inflation. We have all kinds of problems. We may not have enemies trying to chase us and kill us.

There are Christians around the world who do face that. But sometimes we feel all alone. In our old age, and we feel like we're being attacked by those problems. But he says, secondly there, God, don't be far away from me in verse 12 to 13.

So here he says, come quickly and consume completely. Come quickly. He says, oh God, be not far from me. Oh my God, make haste to help me. Just a cry, as I mentioned. This psalm, the entire psalm is a prayer. Crying out to God is a lament. So here he's just saying, stay close to me, God. Stay close to me. I'm going to stay close to you. You stay close to me. But hurry and help me with these enemies. And then he says in verse 13, consume completely. Now you were with us last week. Last week, Psalm 58, we said, was entirely a precatory psalm.

This is an imprecatory verse within a psalm. And you see that a lot. So he says, may my accusers be put to shame and consume with scorn and disgrace. May they be covered who seek my hurt. That's an imprecatory verse within this psalm. So, Psalmist is crying out that God, he's not going to do any violence to them. As we mentioned last week, you don't do the violence. You ask God to deal with your enemies or the enemies of Israel or the enemies of God, but not you. So, despite the unjust attacks of his enemy, the psalmist continues to dedicate himself to testify about the righteousness and mighty deeds of the Lord.

So we can have confidence in God in our old age. We can call out to God in our old age. And thirdly, we need to have a commitment to God in our old age.

And we have three points there. I will praise you, I will proclaim you, and I will pursue you. So if you're all getting elderly like me now, you need to remember these three points. This is actually our application in the psalm. So, number one, I will praise you.

And he says, first off, I'm going to praise you continually in verse four. He says, but I will hope continually. I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to retire. I'm not going to compromise. They might have to kill me like Polycarp, but I'm going to continue and my hope is in you. Psalms 42, verse 11, finishes with the words, Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. So despite delays, maybe thinking that God isn't answering his prayers, this psalmist is going to answer, he's going to wait patiently for the Lord because his hope is in the Lord.

The opposite of hope is what? Fear and despair. Our hope is built upon the character and the word of God. So what is our believer's hope? Well, God has saved us. You have Jesus Christ in your heart. Romans 5, 1 and 2 says, there's no condemnation in God. We're not under the wrath of God. You have a home in heaven awaiting for you. Number two, God will not abandon us.

Romans 8, 31 to 32. The Holy Spirit lives within you. Romans 15, 13. And the word has given us hope. Romans 15, 4 says, the things that were written in the past were written to teach us. You've got to be in God's word. So even until the, you know, I think of Billy Graham, even in his 90s when he was losing his memory, would still be reading God's word two, three hours a day. And lastly, Jesus Christ is our hope. And he's coming soon. And we're going to see him face to face. 1 Timothy 1, 1 says that Christ is our hope.

So he's going to praise God continually. And then he says he's going to praise God increasingly. Verse 14 says, and I will praise you yet more and more. Third time now, the psalmist has mentioned praise.

Of the six times in these 24 verses. You know, in our old age, I hope that your trust is like the psalmist, that you praise him more and more. I think that's what I do. Now, I, you know, we had a Filipino Bible study on last Friday night. Tim, our worship leader, taught about worship. And it was really, really well done and good. And he mentioned that there is so many good music out there now between the Gettys, between Sovereign Grace music. And what's neat for me is a lot of them are doing the Psalms.

I don't know if you avail yourself to that, but the older they get, the more I fall in love with the hymns. We sang one tonight. That's over 400 years old. Mighty Fortress is our God. But instead of complaining about things in life, we need to praise him more and more and be thankful for the blessings that we have. So he's going to praise God continually, increasingly. And then in verse 15, he's going to praise him with his mouth and with his mind. He says, My mouth will tell of your righteous acts and your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge.

So notice with his mouth, he speaks, and with his mind, he is reminded about the great deeds of salvation that God had done in the Old Testament delivering Israel.

So when you look through verses 16 to 24, he says in verse 15, My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, your deeds of salvation. Verse 16, he says, I will remind them of your righteousness alone. Verse 17, I will proclaim your wonderful deeds. Verse 18, I will proclaim your might to another generation. Verse 22, I will praise you with the heart. Verse 22, Also to you I will sing praises with the lyre. Verse 23, My lips will shout with joy. Verse 24, My tongue will talk of your righteousness. So the emphasis here, he's going to share about God all the time.

He's going to praise Him all the time. And so, and then, fourthly here, he's praising continually, increasingly with his mouth and with his mind. He's going to praise Him with musical instruments. And here he says, I will praise you with the harp for your faithfulness. Oh my God, I will sing praises to you with the lyre. So with the harp and the lyre, obviously he's a musician. Obviously he's assigned a time, one of those 24 sections where he would worship. So he's a musician. Notice here though, he says, we have a special name for God.

Now in this Psalm, we've seen the name of God Adonai twice. We've seen the name Yahweh three times. We've seen the name Elohim for God nine times. But here we got a special name. Oh Holy One of Israel. This is very rarely used. It's used in Isaiah 25 times, the book of Isaiah. It's only used three times in Psalms. Psalms 71, 22 here. Psalms 78, 41. And Psalms 89, 18. And it's only used three times elsewhere in the Old Testament. One time in 1 Kings 19, 22. Jeremiah twice, 50, 29 and 51, 5. And it's the name Kadosh Yisrael.

So it's the Holy One of Israel. And the title is especially frequently in Isaiah because it serves to place the sins of Israel contrasted to the holiness of God. So you've got a real special name here for God. And what is he going to praise Him for? Well, he lists two attributes. In verse 15, God's righteousness. And verse 22, God's faithfulness. You want to praise God, you want to pray to God. Sometimes you don't know what to praise Him for, pray for. Just think about the attributes of God. Okay, just think about it.

God's righteousness. James Boyce says, the word righteousness is used in many different ways in the Bible. Most notably of that divine righteousness that is imparted to us in justification. That's what we think of the word righteousness in the New Testament way. That is not the way the word is used here nor characteristically used in the Psalms. Here it refers to God's right dealings to the fact that everything He does is just, that no one can fault Him. Again and again, the Psalms call God a righteous God and speak of your righteousness.

This is the testimony of an old age man who in his old age has found that God does all things rightly or righteously. God can be trusted and we should obey Him. The second attribute in verse 22 is God's faithfulness.

The whole Psalm is about God's faithfulness and in his old age the Psalmist knows that God will be faithful to him to the end. And number five, he's going to praise God with his lips. He says in verse 23, my lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you, my soul also which you have redeemed. So it shouts of joy when he sings songs of praise and for the third time it says all the day.

If the Psalmist is a temple musician, he would be singing songs in the morning, he would be singing songs in the night. They have assigned shifts, 24 different assigned shifts. But this Psalmist isn't just going to sing on Sunday like a lot of us. He's going to sing all the day and when he's not on duty, when he's home, he's going to be singing. I imagine him singing with his wife and with his children around his house. Warren Wiersbe said that we need to occupy yourself with the Lord and he will take care of the enemies.

Fill your day with praise to the Lord and that praise will defeat your enemies. Along with your praise to the Lord, pray to him for help and be sure to witness to those around. That combination is unbeatable. Each of the attributes I think of one person in the Bible. It says, I will praise you, number one.

I think of the example of Anna. Anna, the prophetess in Luke chapter 2. You don't have to turn there, but you remember the story, right? In Luke 2, verse 36, it says, And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanel, from the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years. All my examples are old people. Having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow, she was 84. So at least 84 years as a widow. So she might be close to 100. Some people think 104 years old.

But notice what it says in that verse. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping and fasting and prayer, night and day. And coming up to him that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him, that's baby Jesus, and all who are waiting for the redemption of Israel. So here you have a widow who's been a widow for 84 years and yet she worshiped almost exclusively at the temple and God allowed her to see baby Jesus' face before he took her home. God can and will use all of us, even to the very last days of our life, like the prophetess Anna.

Number two, in the commitment to God at her old age, I will proclaim you. What am I going to proclaim? Four things. Number one, I'm going to proclaim your mighty acts.

When I do evangelism, I start with Genesis 1-1 because creation is the great act. And I begin there. Then I go to the fall. I don't start with God loves you or anything like that. But you proclaim the mighty acts. In verse 16 and verse 24, it says, With the mighty deeds of the Lord I will come. My tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day. So you talk about the mighty acts. The psalmist wanted to tell the next generation about God's mighty deeds. Then two, he's going to proclaim the majestic character of God.

And I've kind of talked about that. He says in verse 16, I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone. Once again, we have the word righteousness. It's in verse 16, verse 19, and verse 24. The psalmist is going to remind and tell the younger generation, even though he experienced a lot of difficulties, a lot of trials, God was the right way. And then thirdly, he's going to proclaim the marvelous deeds, similar to your mighty acts.

Verse 17 says, Oh God, for my youth you've taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. Creation, salvation, things like that. And number four, I will proclaim your mighty power. In verse 18, Even to your old age, and the gray hairs in my head, Oh God, don't forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those who come. So I was thinking in the New Testament, in that same chapter in Luke 2, the example of an old age person. After Anna, there was another person named Simeon.

Actually, his verses are before Anna. In Luke 2, 22, it says, There was a man from Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit in the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do to him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word.

For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of Israel. So before his death at his old age, God allowed Simeon not just to see, but to hold baby Jesus in his hands. And he was the first one to prophesy that salvation would not be just for the Jews, but would be for all the Gentiles for us here today too.

So God will use elderly who have wisdom, who have many years of experience to proclaim salvation to another generation. And then number three, I will praise you, number one, I will praise you, number one, I will proclaim you, number two, and number three, I will pursue you, verses 19 to 21.

And I will pursue you for two reasons, because of who you are and because of what you do. He says in verse 19, Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heaven. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? Psalm 73, that very famous verse 25 and 26 says, Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever. I think that's one of my most favorite Old Testament verses.

God is going to use you. Titus 2 talks about older men being used. Titus 2.3 talks about older women. They're going to teach. So even to your old ages, we have older men, older women, they're serving God even up to their old age. Because why? Because of who God is. They love Him. They serve Him. And then number two, because of what you do.

In verse 21, he says, You have made me see many troubles, calamities, but you'll revive me again from the depths of the earth. You'll bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. You know, in a lot of churches, there's a large portion of retired people, right? One pastor complained. This is not this church, okay? One pastor complained, We have many able-bodied retirees who will not serve. They say, We did our share. They explain, Now let somebody else do the work. That's not how it is to be.

We are to pursue Him to the last days of our life. You know, we have older people here have opportunities to share to the next generation. And in thinking of what example in the Bible do I have of the older, I thought of Lois and Eunice in 2 Timothy 1.5. Paul says, I'm reminded, he's talking about Timothy, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that first dwell in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I'm sure dwells in you.

We learn that Timothy's faith, his upbringing, came from his godly mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois. He had many years of influence from these older women, and that gave Timothy a strong and sincere faith that Paul saw and became Paul's number one missionary and supporter.

We have fathers here, we have mothers here, we have grandfathers here, grandmothers here at CCC. You still have disciples. Who are those disciples? Your children, your grandchildren, and you are an influence on them. I know some of you may not get to see them a lot, but treasure those moments until your dying days, because we need to pursue God. It was F.B. Meyer, the great British preacher, who said to a friend, I hope my father will let the river of my life go flowing fully till the finish. I don't want it to end up in a swamp.

What he's saying is, I want to finish well. So I thought I'd finish with a warning to us today. Even at our old age, we have to be on guard that we finish well. Unfortunately, not many do. It's estimated that maybe only one in three Christians finishes well. And I shared this illustration either one year ago or two years ago, but I think it's fitting with this song to retell it in closing. It was in April of 2012 that three prominent Christian leaders, famous Christian people in America, died in April 2012.

The first one, his name was Mike White. He was executive director of Voice of the Martyrs, a very great Christian organization. He was most famous for flying a helicopter to Cuba and dropping gospel tracts to Cuba. He was a great man. He did a lot of great deeds. But unfortunately, he was found dead by suicide after serious allegations of inappropriate relations with a girl made of him. So even though he will be in heaven, even though he did many great things from the Lord, I would say he didn't finish well.

The second man who died in April of 2012 was someone a lot of you know because you've got his paintings in your house, Thomas Kincaid.

Thomas Kincaid is called the Painter of Light, and he died in that same month of April 2012. But after he died, we found out that his life was a mess. He struggled with alcoholism before he died at the age of 54. He was split from his wife, lived with another woman. So he was very famous, very talented, very rich. I believe he knows the Lord Jesus Christ, but he did not finish well. So those two people did not finish well. And then the third person who died in April of 2012, which was an interesting contrast, is a man named Chuck Colson.

You probably know him, right? He was a Republican politician who worked for Richard Nixon, and he once said that he would walk over his own grandmother to ensure that Nixon got elected. He was a mean, vicious, dirty man. And of course, he got caught up in Watergate, and I think he was maybe one of only two Watergate leaders that went to jail. But before he went to jail, he was given a book by C.S. Lewis, and he found Christ, and he became a believer. And he went to prison, and he ended up, after getting out of prison, founded a very powerful, effective prison ministry that still exists today.

So he did not start off well, but it wasn't until his 60s and his 70s that he found Christ and started being used by Christ. So I would say he started off bad, but Chuck Colson finished well. So the question to us today is, where will we finish? We have to be on guard even to our old age. Satan cannot take your salvation from you, but he can destroy your reputation, your family, what ministry you have, your effectiveness. So we have to keep our confidence in God. We have to keep calling out to him and be committed to him to the end.

What will it be said of us? I can't think it was in the 70s. My mom had a bracelet. I'm not sure if it was basic youth conflicts. I think it was. I don't think they have that anymore. But she had a bracelet that they gave out there, and it had the letters P-B-P-W-M-G-I-F-W-M-Y. Anybody remember what that stands for? Anybody ever go to that? I think I was too young. But that stands for, Please be patient with me. God isn't finished with me yet. I don't care if you're 70, 80, 90. You still have great years, great months, great time of service for the Lord.

God can still use you until that great day when you go to heaven where Jesus comes and takes us home. So what will it be said of us? I hope that 2 Timothy 4, 7, and 8 will be said of you. That when it's time to go home to be with the Lord, you can say, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all those who have loved his appearing.

This old man here in Psalm 71, I think he finished well. I think he finished well. And I hope you and I will. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this psalm. Many of us are getting up in age. Many of us have body aches. Many of us have concerns and doubts. Father, we cry out for our country, which has turned its back on you. It's not easy here living in California with all the problems we have. But Father, I pray that we would all finish well. Father, can we continually praise you and not complain about the things of the world?

Father, can we continually proclaim you and look for opportunities each and every day? Even as older people, there are still people out there, younger generations, who will respect us if we try to share the gospel for them. And Father, can we pursue you? Can we continue to serve with you here at Christ Community Church? And not, there's no retirement. Father, there's no retirement. You can retire from the post office. You can retire from the school district. But you can't retire from ministry at the church.

So may we finish well, Heavenly Father. Thank you for this great example from this psalmist. In Jesus' name, amen.