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Psalm 22, I'll begin reading
in verse 1. To the chief musician set to
the deer of the dawn, a psalm of David. My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping
me and from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime,
but you do not hear, and in the night season, and am not silent. But you are holy, enthroned in
the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in you. They
trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were delivered.
They trusted in you and were not ashamed. But I am a worm
and no man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All
those who see me ridicule me. They shoot out the lip. They
shake the head saying, he trusted in the Lord. Let him rescue him.
Let him deliver him since he delights in him. but you are
he who took me out of the womb. You made me trust while on my
mother's breasts. I was cast upon you from birth.
From my mother's womb, you have been my God. Be not far from
me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. Many bulls
have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled
me. They gape at me with their mouths
like a raging and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water. and
all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it has
melted within me. My strength is dried up like
a pot shirt, and my tongue clings to my jaws. You have brought
me to the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me.
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced
my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They
look and stare at me. They divide my garments among
them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, do
not be far from me. O my strength, hasten to help
me. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power
of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth
and from the horns of the wild oxen. You have answered me. I will declare your name to my
brethren. In the midst of the assembly,
I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise
him. All you descendants of Jacob,
glorify him and fear him, all you offspring of Israel. 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,
he heard. My praise shall be of you in
the great assembly. I will pay my vows before those
who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him will praise
the Lord. Let your heart live forever.
All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nation shall worship before you. For
the kingdom is the Lord's, and he rules over the nations. All
the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship. All those who
go down to the dust shall bow before him. even he who cannot
keep himself alive. A posterity shall serve him.
It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation. They
will come and declare his righteousness to a people who will be born
that he has done this. Amen. Well, let us ask God's
help. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this word. We feel
in many respects that we are walking into very holy ground,
and we would pray that the Spirit would help us as we look at this
prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's a psalm of David, but the
subject matter is certainly David's greater son. And we would pray,
Father, that you would encourage our hearts at what great lengths
the Savior went through to save us from our sins. Help us to
appreciate afresh the gospel of our salvation. Help us to
engage in gratitude and thankfulness to you for the love that you
have shown us in and through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask that the Holy Spirit
would guide us, the Holy Spirit would teach us, and the Holy
Spirit would seal to our hearts these things. And we ask in Jesus'
name, amen. Psalm 22 is obviously a very
important psalm. It is certainly taken up with
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and we will see that as we move
through the psalm. We're simply going to look at
the first half. The psalm basically follows the
earthly ministry of our Lord Jesus. The first half deals with
His humiliation, the suffering, the death that He underwent on
our behalf. and then that turn in 21B when God answers, when
the Father answers, and then we move to the exaltation of
our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, in the language of Bonar,
in his commentary on the book of Psalms, he essentially says
that this is what the psalm is about. As soon as I find the
quote here, he says that it's the Messiah suffering and the
Messiah crowned. And I think that is a great way
for us to appreciate the movement that we find here. So, I want
to look quickly at the subject of the psalm and then, secondly,
at the prophetic teaching of the psalm. We won't look at every
jot and tittle of it, but we will look at some of the primary
emphases in Psalm 22. Note first, in terms of the subject
of the psalm, this is a prophetic word of David. Now, David, as
you well know, if you've read the books of 1 and 2 Samuel,
had no small share of affliction and trial and difficulty in his
life. As soon as the Holy Spirit comes
upon him in 1 Samuel chapter 16, his troubles begin. In other
words, it's not the case that he had all of the sorts of things
that afflicted him prior to the coming of the Spirit, similar
to the Lord Jesus. Remember, Jesus, after his baptism,
is then, the Spirit comes upon him and then he's driven out
into the wilderness where he suffers, or where rather he is
tested by the devil. And the same sort of thing is
true in David. The Spirit comes and the trouble comes. So David
was chased, David was hunted, David was certainly not held
in high regard by Saul, for instance, and by the enemy nations around
Israel. He even had issues in his own
family. The sword would never depart
as a result of his sin. But this psalm transcends anything
that David underwent. This psalm far exceeds the sorts
of things that David underwent. Motier says, the psalm goes beyond
any experience of David's. While it could arise from some
time of his suffering, it goes far beyond such to torture and
death. When you read Psalm 22, you are
reading an account of torture. Torture and death that would
ultimately be experienced by our Lord Jesus Christ. Motier
finishes by saying we are listening to David the prophet looking
forward to the suffering Messiah. In Acts chapter 2 at verse 30,
we learn that David was in fact a prophet. And in terms of the
subject of the psalm, we know that this is, in fact, the experience
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He suffered and He died on behalf
of His people. He was exalted by God. We've
seen all that movement in Acts chapter 2. Peter, in his sermon
on the Day of Pentecost, begins with the true humanity of the
Lord Jesus. He moves on to the predetermined death of the Lord
Jesus. and from there to the glorious
resurrection and the triumphant exaltation. So you see that same
sort of movement reflected that we find in this particular psalm. So it is a prophetic word. As
well, several of these verses in Psalm 22 are quoted in the
New Testament and obviously applied to our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse
1, is Matthew 27, verse 46. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? Verse 8 is Matthew 27, 43. Remember
the mockers at the base of the cross were ridiculing Jesus,
just as is described in Psalm 22. Then verse 15, in the reference
to his great thirst, We see at least allusion of this in John
19, 28, when Jesus is on the cross. Verse 18, the division
of Christ's garments. We see that in Matthew 27 at
verse 35. And then note verse 22. In verse
22, I will declare your name to my brethren. In the midst
of the assembly, I will praise you. That's in Hebrews chapter
2 at verse 12. And I think that is a great sermon
or subject for another message. Look at what Jesus says in verse
22. I will declare your name to my
brethren. In the midst of the assembly,
I will praise you. Christ is present, obviously,
in the preaching of the word. But Christ is also present in
the corporate worship of the church of Jesus Christ. Christ
is ultimately the choir director. Christ is ultimately the worship
leader. Christ is the one who, with his
people, leads the faithful to Zion to sing the praises of God
Most High. It's really a beautiful concept. But let's look next at the prophetic
teaching of the psalm, and I want to look at three things here.
First, the distress of the Messiah, verses 1 and 2. Secondly, the
suffering of the Messiah. And then thirdly, the confidence
of the Messiah. But note the distress, verses
one and two, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why
are you so far from helping me? And from the words of my groaning,
oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not hear and in the
night season and I'm not silent. Now, when we dealt with this
cry of the Savior from the cross in Matthew 27, I tried to demonstrate
what it doesn't mean and tried to highlight what it does mean.
I want to rehearse a few of those things now because there's a
lot of false teaching out there concerning this cry of distress
or this cry of dereliction. The idea being that the father
completely abandoned the son. The father turned his face away
from the son. In fact, there's a very popular
and a famous worship song that tells us that, that the father
turned away from the son while the son was on the cross. If
that is what this text is teaching, then we have some big troubles.
I want to highlight what it doesn't mean. First, the cry of Jesus
does not indicate any division among the persons of the Trinity.
Secondly, the cry of dereliction on the cross does not indicate
any dissolution of the hypostatic union. In other words, Christ
is one person, two natures, and that is not affected with reference
to this particular cry. The cry of Jesus does not indicate,
as one man teaches, that the three persons of the Trinity
suffered on the cross. That is simply inaccurate. That
is bad theology. The second person, according
to his humanity, suffered on the cross, not His deity, not
according to His godhood, but according to His humanity. And
the cry does not indicate that the Father abandoned, without
qualification, the Son. In other words, there was no
rupture, there was no breach, there was no cessation of love
vis-Ã -vis the Father to the Son. It wasn't as if in that moment
when Christ hung upon the cross, the Father stopped loving Him.
That simply cannot be. The Father loved Him always. The Father never stopped loving
Him, and the Father never will stop loving Him. So what does
that cry of dereliction indicate? First, the Lord Jesus, according
to His humanity, suffered in our place on the cross. Many
texts teach us that. Matthew 20, 28. Remember the
Lord Jesus Christ says, the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. 2 Corinthians
5, 21. God made him who knew no sin
to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God
in Him. Galatians 3.13 tells us that
Christ was made a curse, so it's in our humanity. It's assuming
or having the sins of man imputed unto Him. The Father, Hillary,
says it was we who were forsaken and disregarded so that it was
as appropriating our personality that He offered these prayers. And then as well, it's the reality
that the Father did not deliver the Son from the agony of the
cross. That's what's in view, the agony
of the cross. Why have you forsaken me? He
does so according to the humanity, where He assumes our sin, and
He takes the punishment of the Father. When He asks the question,
why, it's not a seeking out of information. Rather, it expresses
His distress. It expresses the full weight
of the wrath and fury of God Almighty received by Christ on
behalf of His people. He knew why He was on the cross.
He knew why He had gone to that place. It had always been predetermined,
and He was following through in order to fulfill His obligations
in terms of the covenant of redemption. as well. This forsakenness was
the withdrawal of the Father's nearness and favor in terms of
a closeness, in terms of that felt or that known or that experienced
blessing. You know that in your own life.
There are times and seasons where you walk with God, you know the
smile of God. There are times and seasons where
you're not walking with God, and you don't always know the
smile of God. Now, it's not the case that Jesus
wasn't walking, but when our sin is heaped up upon the Savior,
and the Father is punishing Him in our stead, in our place, that
was the experience of Christ. He did not have that conscious
smile of the Father at that particular time. Matthew Henry said, Christ
was made sin for us, a curse for us, and therefore, though
God loved Him as a son, He frowned upon Him as a surety. If you
get that, if you begin to appropriate the theology behind statements
like that, it will help you tremendously, not only in your Bible study,
but in your understanding of who God is, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. John Gill says, but he was now
without a sense of the gracious presence of God, and was filled,
notice, as the surety of his people. He's our substitute.
He's our surety. He's our mediator. Our sin is
heaped up upon him. And as a result, the Father is
punishing him, and that elicits this cry of dereliction. Why
hast thou forsaken me? So Gil says, but he was now without
a sense of the gracious presence of God, and was filled, as the
surety of his people, with a sense of divine wrath, which their
iniquities he now bore. Now, the psalm itself indicates
that Jesus didn't interpret this cry of dereliction the way that
others have. If the Father had abandoned Him,
if the Father had stopped loving Him, if the Father had genuinely
forsaken Him, then why would He continue to pray to the Father?
Why would the Father ultimately answer him? Why would the Father
ultimately deliver him and vindicate him and exalt him to his right
hand? It may make for good song copy
to fill our hearts with some sentimental sap, but it is simply
not the case that there was a rupture that twixt the persons of the
Trinity. There was no problems in terms
that the Trinity of God, the Triune God, came into some sort of a rupture
or a breach among the persons. That is simply unacceptable,
and I hope that you appreciate it. Christ, according to His
humanity, the Son of God, took on our humanity, and in our place,
as our surety, He suffered and He died, and as a result, He
calls out from the cross, why have you forsaken me? Now let's
look, secondly, at the suffering of the Messiah. And again, I
don't know that the gospel records even give us as much detail as
does the psalm here. One has observed Hermann Ritterbosch
in his commentary on the gospel of John. He says there's no hint
in any of the gospel narratives that there's some sort of, you
know, rehearsed passion narrative celebrating the physical torture
of Christ. If you ever go to a Roman Catholic
Church, which I certainly don't recommend, they have this thing
called the Stations of the Cross, and they're basically little
pictures all along the walls of the Roman Catholic Church.
And at different times during the year, you walk with the priest,
and he has incense, and he sort of shakes that before each of
the stations of the cross. They may say a prayer, they may
rehearse a bit about what's going on, but there's really this sort
of celebration of the physical torture of Christ. Now, not to
mitigate or take away from the physical torture of Jesus Christ,
but the gospel records don't do that. They don't sort of rehearse
every single jot and tittle of all the sufferings that our Savior
underwent. I don't think this psalm does
either, but it certainly does detail for us the sorts of things
that the Savior encountered on our behalf. And I think it's
helpful for us to remember this. I think it's encouraging for
us to see the great love with which He loved us. And first,
notice the reproach of men experienced by the Savior. In verses 6 to
8, He says, I am a worm and no man, that the Lord Jesus Christ
would utter such a thing, that the Lord Jesus Christ would make
such an admission. It indicates this was the regard
that men had for him. He was no better than a worm.
And Christ understood that he was disdained this way. He says,
I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised by the people.
All those who see me ridicule me. They shoot out the lip. They
shake the head saying he trusted in the Lord. Let him rescue him.
Let him deliver him since he delights in him. We remember
that at the base of the cross. That is precisely what they were
saying to the Savior at that particular time. He was ridiculed.
Now, I think that for us, we get a little ridiculed. We meet
with a little opposition. We meet with a little bit of
disdain from another person, and it just about breaks us.
Or we get very angry. How in the world could they ever
say such a thing? Well, this was part and parcel
of the Lord Jesus' life. He has no form or comeliness.
There was nothing about him that attracted us to him. He came
to his own according to John's gospel, and his own received
him not. He was, in fact, a man of sorrows. He was acquainted
with grief. And one of those things was the reproach of men
that he bore on behalf of his people. Secondly, the multitude
of beastly men that opposed him. When you read this particular
psalm, and you see bulls, or you see lions, or you see dogs,
or Aten, these are not the actual animals. This is simply the psalmist's
way of describing the sufferings of Jesus Christ at the hands
of godless men that had descended to beastly means. They were not
even humanistic in the way that they carried out this execution. That grown people would say of
an innocent and guiltless man, away with him, away with him,
crucify him. That persons would mock the Savior
the way that they did. That they would take a crown
of thorns and embed it into his head. That they would mock him
when he's on the cross actually dying. These were beasts and
not men that encompass the Lord of glory. Notice in verse 12,
many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled
me. They gape at me with their mouths
like a raging and a roaring lion. Verse 19, but you, O Lord, do
not be far from me. Oh, my strength, hasten to help
me. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life, from the power
of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth
and from the horns of the wild oxen. He's encompassed about
by men, to be sure, a multitude of men, many men, but these men
are acting in a beastly fashion. Davis says he describes his suffering
in beastly terms. Bulls surround him, verse 12,
but in the next verse, bulls become a lion that tears up its
prey and roars. In verse 16, dogs circle around. These are not the house pet variety,
but the half-wild garbage moochers of the Near East. But the canines
are human. They are a congregation of evildoers. Verse 16b. The beast imagery
implies, as Alec Motier says, that the assault lacks any of
the constraints of humanity. And I think you ought to appreciate
that when you read through the gospel narrative. Again, reading
it for the factuality that is conveyed therein. There are times,
brethren, that you ought to read the Passion narrative or Psalm
22 to feed your soul with the great love of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I think the supper is a great time to do that as well.
When we eat this bread, we drink this cup. What are we proclaiming
corporately? His death until he comes again
in glory. That is the means by which the
Savior has wrought out our salvation. He didn't pay a price in terms
of money. He had no silver or gold either. But what he had,
he gave on to us, namely his life and his death. That is what
the psalmist is recording for us in terms of prophecy that
would face the Son of God as he came into this world. So we
see the reproach of men, the multitude of beastly men, and
then notice the physical torture inflicted by men in verses 14
to 18. Notice in verse 14, I am poured
out like water and all my bones are out of joint. That would
probably be the most likely thing in execution by crucifixion. I mean, it was a very nasty way
to dispatch someone, a very horrific way to dispatch someone. Remember
that when a man was sentenced to die by crucifixion, he was
first scourged. So he didn't go to that cross
full of health and vigor and zeal and ability to withstand
the pain and torture on the cross for a time. And the beating that
they gave a man deemed for crucifixion was extremely nasty. It was extremely
brutal. It wasn't the one that was inflicted
upon Jesus simply to try to satiate the bloodthirsty Jews. This was
the one that accompanied crucifixion, pieces of bone, pieces of metal
within the scourge itself, so that it would rip open the back,
it would rip open the body of the sufferer. And then once on
the cross, he would die ultimately by asphyxiation. And that is
the reason why that small block of wood is down there by the
feet. That wasn't to provide relief. It was rather to prolong
the suffering. See, the man would be suffering.
He would be asphyxiating. But he would find a little purchase
on that piece of wood, and he'd be able to gasp in some air. Well, that simply prolonged the
amount of time that he would suffer. That's why ultimately
they would break the legs of the victim so that they would
indeed give up the ghost at that particular time. If the suffering
was prolonged such that it would start to go into the next day
or it was something that was going on or taking too long,
that's why they break the legs, to speed up the death process
and to get rid of the victim. That's why Pilate was shocked
or surprised at the reality that Christ was dead. They didn't
have to break his legs, they pierced his side. The suffering
that Christ went through is what is depicted here. I am poured
out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is
like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like
a pot shirt, and my tongue clings to my jaws. You have brought
me to the dust of death. Now, never forget that. Messiah
never forgot what was happening. Yes, these bulls encompassed
Him. Yes, these lions gaped at Him. Yes, these dogs were certainly
nipping at Him. But it was the Father that brought
the Son to this point. This is parallel to Isaiah 53,
10. Yahweh was pleased to bruise
Him. You see, the reality is it was
the predetermined plan of God the Father that Christ come into
this world, that He assume our humanity, and that He ultimately
live and die and rise on our behalf. And Christ understood
that, and Christ knew that. So the physical torture inflicted
by men, we see the effects of crucifixion in verses 14 and
15. But notice the specific reference
to crucifixion in verses 16 to 18, or 16 and 17. 16 says, dogs
have surrounded me, the congregation of the wicked has enclosed me.
Notice, they pierced my hands and my feet. Now, remember when
David wrote this particular psalm, it was probably 900,000 years
before the actual crucifixion. As far as I know, they didn't
practice crucifixion at the time of David. And yet he speaks about
Messiah's feet and hands being pierced. Now, most of you have
the New King James, or many of you have the New King James.
I think it's represented as well in the English Standard Version,
I think the NIV. and the New American Standard
all reflect this reading. They pierced my hands and my
feet. But if you look in the margin
of the New King James, you see MT. That means Masoretic Text,
the Standard Received Text, in terms of the Hebrew Scriptures,
like a lion, instead of they pierced. Now there's a sort of
a lexical reason or a translational reason involved, but as well
there is textual sort of data involved. Now, I don't want to
confuse anyone, but I simply want to say that this does reflect
an older and proper reading. And it's very intriguing because
we typically translate the Old Testament based off the Masoretic
text. Well, here is an instance where
the New King James translators went with what was called the
Septuagint. The Septuagint, being older, preserved an older reading.
In fact, there was a manuscript discovered in 1997 that was,
I think, substantially older than the Masoretic text, and
it preserved this same reading as well. You need to understand
something about the Masoretic Text. They were not Christians. They were not pro-Jesus. And
I'm not saying they were duplicitous. I'm not saying get rid of your
English versions based on the Masoretic Text. For the most
part, it's most excellent. But in clearly messianic texts
that refer to the Lord Jesus Christ, there are times, this
being one of them, where they obscure that. Again, they're
not pro-Jesus. They're not pro-Him as Messiah. In fact, Michael Reitelnick,
in a very excellent book called The Hope of Israel, a Jew himself
that had been converted to Jesus Christ, he says plainly, the
Masoretic text rendering, that's the margin that you have there
in the New King James, the Masoretic text rendering avoids the Christological
implications of predicting the crucifixion, thereby taking the
less messianic rendering and making it more acceptable to
Judaism. There's a school of thought out
there that the LXX of the Septuagint is always bad. Now, at times,
the Septuagint preserves older readings and certainly more Christological
readings, readings that apply specifically to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And all of that to simply say
that long before the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, David
prophesied, David stated, David stipulated. And one wonders how
the persons that operated against the Lord Jesus could possibly
pillow their heads at night based on what they would have known
from Psalm 22, that they act out very specifically and particularly
what is prophesied here by King David of Israel, they inflict
upon this Jesus of Nazareth. So He suffered at the hands of
men, He suffered the physical torture, and the specific reference
to crucifixion is there in verse 16. So we see the distress, verses
1 and 2, we see the suffering all throughout the psalm. Let's
look finally at the confidence of the Messiah. In other words,
why hast thou forsaken me was not interpreted by Messiah as,
I can't pray to him anymore, I can't call upon him anymore.
No, it pertains specifically to the sufferings and the agonies
of the cross. But all through that ordeal,
this is what Christ does. He casts himself wholly and fully
upon the Father. He refreshes himself at the thought
of who God is. And I think there are four things,
or three things rather, we ought to appreciate. First, the perfections
of God. Secondly, the faithfulness of
God. And thirdly, the presence of God. But no, one of the things
that encouraged Messiah was the reality that God was holy. Look
at verse three, but you are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel.
That's pretty counterintuitive to the way that you and I operate.
I would suggest. Maybe not. Maybe you've got it
mastered. But I think for God's people,
at times, when they go through distress, when they are tried,
when they are afflicted, the first thing called into question
is the integrity of God. In other words, how could you
let this happen to me? We may not voice it at a prayer
meeting quite like that, but that might be the heartbeat of
our soul. How in the world could a good,
a gracious, and a holy God ever allow such calamity to fall upon
me? Messiah will never entertain
that thought. Messiah will always entertain
the reality that you are holy. Whatever may be happening around
me, whatever bulls or dogs or lions encompass me about, whatever
physical torture I am undergoing, whatever hardships I am pressed
with, this one thing is true. God is holy. He is enthroned
in the praises of His Israel. There is no shadow of turning
with Him. There is no variation. God's
immutability and God's impassibility encourage the Savior on the cross. The reality that God is holy
is non-negotiable. And brethren, I would suggest,
without trying to moralize the text, we take our cue from Messiah
here. Never let your thoughts of God
run too hard when you are suffering affliction. Do not entertain
hard thoughts of God. Rather, encourage your heart
that he is holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel. Listen
to Spurgeon. He said, however ill things may
look, there is no ill in thee, O God. We are very apt to think
and speak hardly of God when we are under his afflicting hand,
but not so the obedient son. He knows too well his father's
goodness to let outward circumstances libel his character. There is
no unrighteousness with the God of Jacob. He deserves no censures. Let him do what he will. he is to be praised and to reign
enthroned amid the songs of his chosen people. You see, a couple
of years ago, our particular association of churches went
through a sort of a theological debate or a theological sort
of pursuit with reference to the doctrine of divine impassibility.
And while I don't want to rehearse all of the contours of that,
I would simply like to say that that is one of the areas an association
of churches should fight for. In other words, it has to do
with who God is. I think that for the people of
God, as long as we get a little bit of Bible reading, a little
bit of prayer, and we don't fall into some major calamitous sin
or trial or difficulty or hardship, we're pretty good with that.
But you know, for the scriptures, we are told by our Lord Jesus
Christ that this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the
only true God in Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. The psalmist
elsewhere said, greater the works of the Lord, they are studied
by all who have pleasure in them. In other words, brethren, theology
proper is not simply a pursuit for James Dolezal. Theology proper
isn't simply something that John Owen spent a great deal of time
on. Theology proper isn't something located only in the 17th century
confessions of faith. Theology proper is the ballast
of the soul. Who God is, is going to keep
you from losing your mind. Who God is, is going to steady
you in the midst of affliction, in the midst of trial, in the
midst of hardship. You don't need to know who you
are in terms of those things, because you already do. You need
to know who God is. And in the midst of distress,
in the midst of calamity, in the midst of suffering, the Lord
Christ encourages His own heart with this bit of theology proper. You are holy, enthroned in the
praises of Israel. Brethren, learn from Messiah,
learn your Bible, learn the doctrine of God, and may that be the ballast
of the soul. May that be encouragement in
the times of difficulty that you will no doubt face. It is
God that speaks peace to the heart. You know, this has always
perplexed me. Oh, you know, we just need practical
sorts of lessons for our lives. No, you need a good big fat dose
of theology proper for your life. You need to know that God is
spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom,
power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. You need to meditate
upon that. You need to find comfort in that.
You need to find encouragement in that. And then you'll be able
to deal with those practical issues in your life. The practical
issues in life, how to be a faithful husband, how to be a faithful
wife, how to be a faithful father, I mean, we need preaching on
that. I'm not against that. I have preached on that. We'll
probably continue to preach on that. But it's not rocket science. You just do what God says. Basically,
isn't that it? Yeah, yeah, everybody with me?
What do we do to be a good husband? Do what God says. Love your wife as Christ loved
the church and gave himself for her. How do I be a good and godly
woman? Submit to your own husband as
the church does to the Lord. Honor him, respect him, thank
him for his hard work. How do we raise these children?
Well, you just apply some love and correction and a whole lot
of prayer. Now again, detailed, practical,
specific instruction is helpful. I'm not against that, but don't
be so busy pursuing that that you miss God. This is eternal
life, that they may know how to effectively bring up their
children. Not minimizing, bringing up children. I hope everybody
gets that. But that they may know Thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. This is what encourages
Messiah when He's on the cross in distress. The fact is that
God is holy. Notice, secondly, the faithfulness
of God. Verses four and five, the past faithfulness of God
provides present comfort to the Messiah. Our fathers trusted
in you. They trusted and you delivered
them. They cried to you and were delivered. They trusted in you
and were not ashamed. Before we look at that in more
detail, look at what Jesus says here, our fathers. Notice in
verse 22, I will declare your name to my brethren. Jesus identifies
with us. They are our fathers, according
to Jesus. We are his brethren, according
to Jesus. Union with Christ brings us into
this familial relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Union with Christ brings us into a place of blessed adoption as
sons. Adoption with which, or by which,
we are entitled to all the privileges of the firstborn. This is what
Paul says in Romans chapter eight. We are joint heirs with Christ. Christ speaks of our fathers
and he speaks to us or of us as my brethren. But this refreshes
the Savior. Our fathers trusted in you. They
trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were delivered.
They trusted in you and were not ashamed. You see, in order
for Messiah to be able to remind himself of this in the midst
of suffering, he would have had to known it from the beginning.
In other words, you need to understand the movement of God in the history
of His people. The Exodus comes up so many times
in the Bible, subsequent to the Exodus, as the magnificent display
of the power of God in the redemption of His people. And for us in
the new covenant, there's a new exodus, and that is from the
bondage of sin via the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to know that
data so that we can refresh our spirits in the midst of present
suffering with a reminder of the past faithfulness of Yahweh.
That's what Christ does here. Our fathers trusted in you. They
trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were delivered.
They trusted in you and were not ashamed. That is how we ought
to be encouraging ourselves. Notice as well the faithfulness
of God displayed to Messiah previous to the cross. Verse 9, you are
He who took me out of the womb. You made me trust while on my
mother's breasts. I was cast upon you from birth.
From my mother's womb, you have been my God. You see, you've
never left me, you've never forsaken me, you've never departed me,
you've never abandoned me. Now that doesn't mean every step
of the way was only rose petals and bluebirds singing tunes of
joy on my way to heaven. The Savior, prior to the cross,
knew trial, knew sorrow, knew hardship, but he knew the faithful
presence of God in the midst of that. You see, brethren, what
Christ does on the cross, again, not to moralize it, but simply
to try to encourage us to take a similar tact. Remind yourself
of the perfections of God and remind yourself of the past faithfulness
of God in your own life, in the lives of the people of God, throughout
the history of redemption. And then notice, thirdly, in
terms of the confidence of the Messiah, the presence of God. He invokes it. He prays for it.
He pleads with God. Notice in verse 11, Be not far
from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. The
imminence of trouble, the imminence of suffering evokes from the
Savior that cry, Be not far from me. Again, whatever we interpret
verse 1 as, it doesn't mean abandonment, total. It doesn't mean forsakenness,
total. The Lord Christ invokes the presence
of the Father in the midst of His calamity. Verses 19 to 21a. But you, O Lord, do not be far
from me. O my strength, hasten to help me. Deliver me from the
sword, my precious life, from the power of the dog. Save me
from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen. He
petitions God Most High that God would be there for him, that
he would be near, and that he would bring salvation and deliverance
from this gaggle of enemies that had confronted the Messiah. And then, of course, we have
in verse 21b, you have answered me. And the psalm then shifts
directions amazingly. We move from the suffering of
the Messiah to the crown of the Messiah when he enjoys that exaltation
given him by the Father for his having performed the work as
surety of the new covenant. Well, brethren, as I said, this
is indeed holy ground. It's a bit of a scratch the surface. May it encourage our hearts and
may it draw from us a great appreciation for the great love with which
the Savior loved us and he gave himself for us. Paul does this
in the New Testament. He says this, who loved me and
who gave himself for me. Perhaps some of our struggles
in the Christian life is because we're not thinking theologically.
We're not refreshing our hearts with who God is. We're not refreshing
our minds with what God does. We get this idea that, well,
you know, he's always been there in the past, but in this present
circumstance, I have no confident expectation whatsoever that he
will deliver me. He has proven himself faithful. I love that bit Spurgeon said
when he said, pray as those who have tried and proven their God. Pray as those who have tried
and proven their God, because essentially that's what we have
done. We have tried Him. We have proven Him. He is faithful,
and He will never relinquish. He will never depart. He will
never leave us, nor will He forsake us. So let us close in a word
of prayer. Thank you, Father, for your word,
and thank you for this psalm, this prophecy concerning the
Messiah, and thank you for the New Covenant documents that show
us these things lived out, experienced by the Son of Man on behalf of
his people. We give praise to you for so
great a salvation, and we pray to you that you would give us
this mindset Help us to ponder the perfections of God. Help
us to consider the faithfulness of God. Help us in the midst
of trial and affliction and hardship and difficulty, not to jump ship,
but to refresh our minds with who you are and with what you've
done in the past, in the lives of the people of God at large,
and specifically in our lives. You've always been there. You're
always faithful. You will never cease from being
thus. You have promised to never leave
us nor forsake us, and in this we greatly rejoice. And we do
thank you that our Lord Jesus Christ underwent what He underwent
on the cross, that He did have this experience. He did suffer
on our behalf so that we may have everlasting life. We give
all praise and glory unto you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And we pray through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
