The True North of Our Salvation Text: Psalm 69:13-18
Introduction: A Prayer That Knows Its Address
We come now to the central pivot of this psalm. The first part of Psalm 69 is a raw, visceral descent into the abyss. The psalmist, who is David, but who is also a prophetic type of the Lord Jesus, is sinking. He is in deep mire, where there is no standing. The floods are overflowing him. He is hated without a cause, reproached, a stranger to his own brothers. This is not the complaint of a man who has had a bad week. This is the cry of a man being swallowed by the machinery of Hell itself. And yet, in the middle of this torrent of affliction, when he is up to his neck in the hatred of men, he turns his face in a different direction. He looks up.
This is the critical distinction between godly sorrow and worldly despair. Worldly despair looks at the mire, it studies the mire, it becomes an expert in the fluid dynamics of the mire. It writes poetry about the mire. But godly sorrow, while fully acknowledging the reality of the mire, knows the mire does not have the last word. It knows the address of Heaven. It knows to whom the prayer must be sent. The prayer of faith is not a denial of the circumstances, but rather a defiant declaration of who God is in the midst of those circumstances.
This section of the psalm, from verse 13 to 18, is a master class in how to pray when you are going under. It is a prayer saturated with covenantal logic. It is a prayer that appeals not to the psalmist's own merit, for he has already confessed his foolishness (v. 5), but to the character of God. This is the kind of prayer that God is bound by His own honor to answer. And because this is a Messianic psalm, quoted numerous times in the New Testament in reference to Christ, we are seeing here the prayer of the Lord Jesus in the depths of His passion. This is what it sounded like when the Son of God prayed from the cross and from the garden. And because we are in Him, this is how we also are to pray.
The Text
But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Yahweh, at an acceptable time;
O God, in the abundance of Your lovingkindness,
Answer me with the truth of Your salvation.
Deliver me from the mire and do not let me sink;
May I be delivered from my foes and from the deep waters.
May the flood of water not overflow me
Nor the deep swallow me up,
Nor the pit shut its mouth on me.
Answer me, O Yahweh, for Your lovingkindness is good;
According to the abundance of Your compassion, turn to me,
And do not hide Your face from Your slave,
For I am in distress; answer me quickly.
Oh draw near to my soul and redeem it;
Ransom me because of my enemies!
(Psalm 69:13-18 LSB)
The Acceptable Time (v. 13)
The psalmist begins his direct appeal by anchoring his prayer in God's perfect timing and faithful character.
"But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Yahweh, at an acceptable time; O God, in the abundance of Your lovingkindness, Answer me with the truth of Your salvation." (Psalm 69:13)
Notice the turn: "But as for me." The world is a cacophony of accusations, the drunkards are singing their songs about him, his enemies are mighty. But as for me. This is the essence of faith. It is a personal, resolute stand against the overwhelming consensus of the world. My prayer is to You. Not to circumstance, not to fate, not to my own inner strength. It is addressed to Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God.
He prays at an "acceptable time." What does this mean? It means he is submitting his desperation to God's sovereign timetable. We are often tempted to pray with a stopwatch, demanding that God answer us according to our schedule. But true faith prays persistently while trusting that God knows the perfect moment for deliverance. The Apostle Paul picks up this very language when he says, "Behold, now is the favorable time, behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2). The ultimate "acceptable time" was when God sent His Son. And because of that, any time a believer cries out to God in the name of Jesus, it is an acceptable time. God is always open for business.
And what is the basis of his appeal? Not his own righteousness, but God's character. He appeals to the "abundance of Your lovingkindness." This is the great Hebrew word hesed, God's covenant loyalty, His steadfast, unrelenting love. He is not asking for a handout based on pity; he is appealing to a covenant promise. He is saying, "God, you have pledged yourself to me. Your reputation is on the line." And he asks to be answered with the "truth of Your salvation." God's salvation is not a flimsy hope; it is truth. It is as solid and real as God Himself. He is asking God to act in accordance with His own nature, which is the most powerful argument a man can make.
The Cry for Deliverance (v. 14-15)
Having established the basis for his prayer, he now lays out the specifics of his desperate situation, using the same metaphors from the beginning of the psalm.
"Deliver me from the mire and do not let me sink; May I be delivered from my foes and from the deep waters. May the flood of water not overflow me Nor the deep swallow me up, Nor the pit shut its mouth on me." (Psalm 69:14-15)
This is a threefold petition against being utterly consumed. He is in the mire, and he feels himself sinking. He is in deep waters, surrounded by foes. He feels the flood rising, the deep opening its mouth like a great sea monster to swallow him, and the pit, Sheol, the grave, preparing to close its mouth over him forever. This is the language of finality. This is the cry of one who knows that if God does not intervene, his destruction is certain and absolute.
This is precisely the language of the cross. Christ sank under the waves of God's judgment for our sin. He was delivered over to His foes. The deep of God's wrath swallowed Him up, and the pit of the grave shut its mouth upon Him. He prayed this prayer, and on the surface, it appeared to go unanswered. He sank. He was swallowed. The pit did shut its mouth on Him. But this was all according to the acceptable time. God let Him sink so that He might, in His resurrection, become the firm ground for us to stand on. God let the deep swallow Him so that He could plunder the belly of the beast and lead captivity captive. God let the pit shut its mouth on Him so that He could shatter its gates from the inside and secure an exit for all who trust in Him.
When we pray this prayer, we must remember that we are praying on the other side of Christ's victory. We may feel like we are sinking, but we are standing on the Rock. The deep may threaten, but we are hidden in the Ark. The pit has no claim on us, because its mouth has been permanently gagged by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Goodness of God's Love (v. 16-17)
He now returns to the character of God as the foundation for his plea for a swift and personal response.
"Answer me, O Yahweh, for Your lovingkindness is good; According to the abundance of Your compassion, turn to me, And do not hide Your face from Your slave, For I am in distress; answer me quickly." (Psalm 69:16-17)
The logic here is beautiful. "Answer me... for Your lovingkindness is good." He is not saying, "Answer me, for I am good." He is saying that God's hesed is intrinsically good, pleasant, and right. It is the nature of a good God to show His steadfast love. To not answer would be contrary to His very character. He then appeals to the "abundance of Your compassion." Our sins may be many, but His compassions are a multitude. Our troubles may be overwhelming, but the abundance of His mercy is greater still. No matter how deep our pit, God's compassion is deeper.
The cry, "do not hide Your face," is one of the most poignant in all the Psalms. For a servant of God, the ultimate terror is not the mire or the flood, but the hidden face of God. To be in distress is one thing; to be in distress and feel abandoned by God is the true darkness. This was the cry of Christ from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" God hid His face from His Son, so that He would never have to hide His face from us. Because Christ endured the ultimate dereliction, we have the promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us.
And so, because he is in distress, he asks God to answer him "quickly." This is not an arrogant demand. This is the cry of a child in terror. It is an honest admission of his own finitude and frailty. He is at the end of his rope, and he knows that a delayed deliverance is no deliverance at all. And our God is not a God who is slow to hear the cries of His children when they are in genuine, urgent need.
The Ultimate Need: Redemption (v. 18)
Finally, the prayer culminates in the ultimate request, which sums up all the others: the need for redemption.
"Oh draw near to my soul and redeem it; Ransom me because of my enemies!" (Psalm 69:18)
This gets to the heart of it. More than just being pulled from the mud, he needs God to draw near to his very soul. The problem is not just external, it is internal. He needs the presence of God. This is the great promise of the gospel: Immanuel, God with us. God does not just shout instructions from heaven; He comes down into the pit with us. He draws near.
And in drawing near, He redeems. The word for redeem here is ga'al, the action of a kinsman-redeemer. It is the word used of Boaz redeeming Ruth. It means to buy back, to reclaim what was lost. The psalmist sees himself as enslaved, sold into the hand of his enemies, and he needs his divine Kinsman to pay the price to set him free. "Ransom me because of my enemies!" His enemies have put a price on his head, and he is asking God to pay it.
This is the gospel in miniature. We were in the pit, sold under sin, held captive by our enemy, the devil. We could not pay the price for our own freedom. But our great Kinsman-Redeemer, the Lord Jesus, drew near to our soul. He became flesh and blood, our kinsman. And on the cross, He paid the ransom. As He Himself said, the Son of Man came "to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). He bought us back, not with silver or gold, but with His own precious blood. He did this "because of our enemies," sin, death, and the devil, disarming them and making a public spectacle of them at the cross.
Therefore, when we find ourselves in the mire, when the waters rise and our enemies surround us, we can pray this prayer with the utmost confidence. We are not just asking God to do something new; we are asking Him to apply a victory that has already been won. We are asking Him to enforce the terms of our redemption, which Christ has already secured. Our prayer is not a desperate gamble; it is the confident claim of a redeemed child, addressed to a faithful Father, based on the finished work of the beloved Son. And that is a prayer that God will always, in His perfect and acceptable time, be delighted to answer.