### Psalm 70:1-6
*Intentional about needing God’s day by day help and deliverance*
*This is essentially the same as Psalm 40:13-18.*
1 Hasten, O God, to save me;
come quickly, Lord, to help me.
2 May those who want to take my life be put to shame and confusion;
may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace.
– *This is not vindictive, as it might at first appear. David is calling on God to act by recalling the covenant relationship between the Lord and His people, between the Lord and David.*
3 May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!”
turn back because of their shame.
– *The enemies of surrounding nations liked to take opportunity to “Aha” and mock God’s people. David is calling on God to honour the principle of Genesis 12:3 i.e let God bless or curse those who blessed or cursed him.*
4 But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who long for your saving help always say, “The Lord is great!”
5 But as for me, I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God.
You are my help and my deliverer; Lord, do not delay.
– *The sense of “come quickly to deliver me” is always predicated on an attitude of dependence and reliance of God. This is an easy principle to grasp; throughout history it has proved to be a difficult one for God’s people of every era to embrace.*
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#### Intentional about needing God’s day by day help and deliverance
We can’t do it ourselves, the psalmist reminds us. There are difficulties, there is opposition – the enemy is always prowling round, seeing who he can devour – and we not only need help but need to know to ask for help. Pride always wants to be self-sufficient, but God wants a relationship with us that lets Him in, that asks Him to be involved, that looks to His provision.
Deism is a philosophy that arose in the Age of Enlightenment in the 1700s when modern science and discovery (from Isaac Newton onwards) and ideas such as Thomas Paine’s ‘The Age of Reason’ elevated discovery and reason above mystery and revelation from God, which was criticised as the control of ‘priestcraft’. Newton’s mathematics explained the universe as a perfectly balanced gravitational system. It was not a big leap from this to seeing the world as created by God and left to run, without need of His intervention. Deists view God as detached and distant, not wanting to be involved in our world; you may not hear the term used much today, but that thinking still affects our relationship with God today and has robbed much of the church of an effective prayer ministry.
This mature prayer by David towards the end of his life teaches us the exact opposite. God knows what we need, but out of relationship He loves us to ask, and to share our lives with Him.
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