Heavenly Father, we know that
without You nothing is possible for us. By You and through You,
especially because of the work of Your dear Son and the power
of His Spirit and the amazing wonder of the Gospel, all things
are possible. We thank You for Your mercy and
grace in our lives and we pray that You would just be here today
to work upon hearts, to open understanding, and to refresh
the souls of your people. It is your presence, Heavenly
Father, that we desperately need. We pray for it this morning in
Christ's name. Amen. In John 17.3 our Lord declares that eternal
life is to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom
Thou hast sent. As we often say here, this isn't
a reference to intellectual knowledge. It's in regard to experimental
knowledge. It's a reference to actually
being in relationship or union with our Father in Heaven through
our relationship with and in His dear Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. To be in relationship with our God because of the redeeming
work of His Son means that we're right now qualified to receive
all grace, all mercy, all comfort, every good thing, and every promise
made under the everlasting covenant. And yet it doesn't always seem
that way, does it? All these blessings, they reside
in the very presence of our God. But through the many distractions
of the world, we just naturally gravitate away from Him, and
in doing so we deprive ourselves of what our souls need the most.
Now, the false teachers direct us to our own wisdom and our
own strength to please God and to receive His rewards. But Hebrews 11.6 tells us that
without faith it's impossible to please Him. For he that cometh
to God must, one, believe that he is, and two, that he's a rewarder
of them that diligently seek him. His presence in our lives, it
is our great reward. And yet the biggest problem with
this, in spite of what the false teachers say, is in Romans 3.11
there are none that seek God. Brothers and sisters, we desperately
need our Father to draw us to Himself if we're going to have
any relationship with Him. And this is why He sovereignly
brings suffering into our lives. Now, according to our worldly
wisdom, our suffering seems to be an impairment
to Christian growth. but it's actually part of God's
saving grace in our lives. We desperately need circumstances
like we just read in Psalm 107 to drive us urgently back to
the throne of grace, and even more importantly, back into relationship
with our God. Everyone who's met the Lord in
a saving way, either at this very moment or sometime soon,
are promised to experience suffering in their lives. It may be a great tragedy close
to home. It could be the impending death
of a loved one. It may be an illness or ailment
that continues to harass us. It might be the spiritual deadness
of someone close to us. It may just often be the consequences
of our own sin. It's in these circumstances that
our God reveals our weaknesses and strips us of all dependence
upon man and upon the world. It's here in the furnace of our
afflictions that our God reminds us of His faithfulness and of
the love and security which only His presence brings. It's here in what are often our
greatest trials and agonies that he purges us of our unbelief,
restoring and in fact rewarding our faith. So I'd just like us
to consider these things as we look at what's the greatest example
of faith in the midst of suffering ever recorded. The cross work
of our Lord Jesus as he gives himself a substitute for his
bride, the Church. He is our great forerunner. He
is the firstborn of many and so if our God is willing today
as we read Psalm 22, my hope is that we will see something
of our own experiences of God's saving grace in our sufferings. So let's read Psalm 22. My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from
helping me, and from the words of my mouth, my roaring? My God,
I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night
season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that
inhabits the praise of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee,
they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto
thee, and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were
not confounded. But I am a worm and no man, a
reproach of men and despised of the people. All they that
see me laugh me to storm. They shoot out the lip, they
shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver
him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in it. But thou
art he that took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope
when I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the
womb. Thou art my God from my mother's
belly. Be not far from me, for trouble
is near, for there is none to help me. Many bulls have compassed
me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset
me around. They gape upon me with their
mouths as a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted
in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a pot shirt, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought
me into the dust of death. For dogs of compassion The assembly
of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierce my hands and my feet.
I may tell all my bones. They look and stare upon me.
They part my garments among them and cast lots for my vesture. But be not thou far from me,
O Lord, my strength. O my strength, haste thee to
help me. Deliver my soul from the sword,
my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's
mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
I will declare thy name to my brethren. In the midst of the
congregation I will praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise
him. All ye see of Jacob, glorify him, and fear him all ye see
of Israel. For he hath not despised nor
abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. Neither has he hid
his face from him, but when he cried unto him, he heard. My
praise shall be of thee in the great congregation. I will pay
my vows before them that fear him. The meek shall eat and be
satisfied. They shall praise the Lord that
seek him. Your heart shall live forever. All the ends of the
world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds
of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom
is the Lord's, and he is governor among the nations. All they that
be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship. All they that go
down to the dust shall bow before him, and none can keep alive
his own soul. A seed shall serve him. It shall
be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come
and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born,
that he hath done this. Just before we begin I'd like
to briefly look back at the end of verse 21. Because it seems
that at this point in our Lord's suffering there's a dramatic
change in His whole focus. Prior to this point in the psalm,
he is acutely aware of his physical circumstances and yet suddenly
something happens that completely redirects his focus onto the
amazing faithfulness of our Father in Heaven. My hope today is to deal with
this psalm in two parts and over two sermons. I certainly want
to address it in light of the Lord's agony but I also want
to address it in regard to the way his experience parallels
our own, especially in the many difficult circumstances that
God brings into our lives. As I said earlier, it's often
through allowing suffering in our lives that our God sovereignly
draws us to himself. It's actually in this intimate
drawing near of God that we have both the culmination of our sufferings,
and the inspiration for Christian life. Today I just want us to
consider the various stages of the Lord's suffering on our behalf
and especially our Father in Heaven's activities as He restores
and He rewards faith. Next week, by God's grace, we'll
look at the way that these experiences inspire Christian life and in
fact produce fruit in us for the Lord's glory. So verse 1,
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so
far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my
God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the
night season, and am not silent. Angus has told us a couple of
times recently that this is the ninth hour. It's three o'clock
in the afternoon, It's the time of the evening sacrifice. It's
also that time in history when the shadow actually really did
become the reality. Our Father had laid all the sins
of all his people upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He poured out the
full rock of his holy justice upon him and completely extinguished
every single sin in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a time
when the sun refuses to shine. It's a time when the father who
is of too pure an eye to look upon sin is forced by his holy
character to look away from his darling son. I think it was Charles
Spurgeon who commented that it was the only time ever that there
was a separation of the triune God, and it was for our salvation. Brothers and sisters, this is
what the agony of Gethsemane is all about. Our Lord's anticipation
of becoming sin and of being alienated from his Father in
Heaven. Sin definitely separates us from
God, doesn't it? Our Lord is sinless in himself
and yet he carried all our sins and he suffered separation from
his Father. While our sins are covered by
the blood of the Lord, They still cause us to feel some sort of
separation from our God, don't they? The world, its sins, the
sins of our own humanity, they all continue to entice us and
to draw us away from relationship with our God, and even in seemingly
wholesome ways at times. It could be as simple as solving
one of those many mundane problems of life, and yet for a little
while it draws both our attention and our confidence away from
our God. Now at times this happens more
and more in our lives until ultimately we replace all dependence upon
the Lord with our own wisdom and our own strength. And then suddenly, sometimes
very suddenly, we just realise that we are far, far away from
our God. This is the point of realisation.
This is the place where we really begin to start to experience
something of our separation from God. It's not that He is ever far
from us. We know that He has promised to never leave us or
forsake us. He does allow us to experience this so much so
that sometimes when we cry out to Him, He doesn't answer us. Have any of you been struck by
this? It's when we really diligently begin to seek our Father in Heaven.
I'll give you a great example. I was a rotten kid and I was
always the kid that got lost in the shopping centre. Now,
a few years ago, just before Mum died, I talked to her about
it and she said to me, look Simon, you were always busy. You were
always distracted and interested in things. I was always telling
you to stay close, but you were always wandering off. So I let
you get lost a lot of times, she said. Then she said, darling,
you know, I was never far from you. I always knew where you
were and if I didn't see you, everyone in the shopping centre
could hear you. but it taught you to stay close. So it's at this point when we're
lost that the whole world begins to fade away, doesn't it? We
begin to prioritise things and by God's grace fellowship with
Him becomes our greatest concern. We start to long for inspiration.
The more we cry, the more those cries seem to go unheard, the
more desperate and the more diligent they become. The longer the Lord
allows this to go on, the more we contemplate the faithfulness
of our Father in Heaven. Look there at verse 3. But thou
art holy, O thou that inhabits the praise of Israel, for our
fathers trusted in thee. They trusted, and thou didst
deliver them. They cried unto thee and were
delivered. They trusted in thee, and were not confounded. As our
Lord in his agony considers the holiness and the faithfulness
of our God, he without a doubt understands that this is the
only way to save his precious bride and church. It's on the
basis of these very sufferings that he was going through that
our Father could deal so faithfully with us and be the subject of
the praises of Israel. For us in the midst of our own
great trials when all the world seems secondary and our only
remaining hope is in a God who seems to have forsaken us and
hear us not outcry, that we begin to consider the character of
our God. We begin to consider His holiness
and that just magnifies His past faithfulness to wretched sinners
like ourselves. We begin to remember His faithfulness,
His mercy in our own failings, but especially we begin to remember
the great comfort His presence had always brought us. It is here in our lowest point
when all seems lost that we begin to realise just how precious
that sweet communion was to us. The more we contemplate the faithfulness
of the Lord, the more aware we become of our dependency upon
them, our own desperate need for grace. Verse 6, But I am
a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despise of the people.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the
lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted in the Lord that he
would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he
delighted in him. I always find it really hard
to think of our Lord in regard to sin, but all our salvation
relies on it. He actually did become sin, our
sin. There really was a transfer of
all our sin onto him. Angus read Psalm 40 a few weeks
back actually. In verse 12 the Lord says, and
this is the Lord speaking, For innumerable evils have compassed
me about, mine iniquities, his iniquities, have taken hold upon
him. Our Lord really did take our
sins as his own. Not only was our Lord well aware
that these sins were repulsive before his Father in Heaven,
he was also well aware of the mockery and the shame that the
punishment of being hung on a cross would bring him. Those that saw
the Lord in his agony, they just assumed that he was forsaken
of all hope. But the Jews that looked upon
him, the Jews knew from Deuteronomy 21 that cursed is everyone who
hangs on a tree. You see, in spite of having taught
others to trust in God alone for salvation, In spite of proving
that he was the Messiah by the miracles he performed, in spite
of the fact that as he suffered there he was actually becoming
a curse to save others, in ignorance all the people ever saw in him
was a sinner rejected by God. And you know, as we suffer also
in our own trials, and we contemplate the holy character of our God,
we can't but help a growing consciousness of our own sin, can we? It's
at times like these that we know more than ever that we are the
true sinners. It's at times like these that
we realise that to the fleshly eye of many our faith in God
doesn't seem justified. However, as much as there are
many, especially in professing Christianity, who mock us for
trusting in God alone for all our salvation, our greatest accuser is often
ourselves. So often in our lowest state,
the old man of our flesh will attack us. Doubts will rise up
and at times, even to ourselves, we seem too big a sinners for
the Lord to save. What an amazing grace of God
it is that as we agonise over our sinfulness before Him, that
He actually causes us to become aware that salvation was never
a work of our own. It's all His work. Verse 9 and
10. For thou art he that took me
out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when
I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the
womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. The buck here
comes as a contrast to the mockery of the Lord's dependence upon
his Father in Heaven. One of the most amazing things
I think about the Lord's humanity is that although he was God incarnate,
Rather than walk by his own strength, he lived out his entire life
as our representative, committing every circumstance of his life
into the hands of his father, walking on our behalf by faith. He knew very well of the care
that his father had for him, even from his mother's womb.
He also knew very well that to be saved, It must come from the
hands of His Father in Heaven. Those who know the Lord, they
know that He is the author and the perfecter of faith. They
know that He sustains us both spiritually and physically in
this world, and they know that the only true comfort lies in
His presence. At these times we not only remember
that faith is a gift from God, we remember and we desperately
cling to that promise that He which hath begun a good work
in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. And so in our greatest desperation,
remembering past mercies and with nowhere else to turn, We just continue to appeal to
our God for mercy. Verse 11. Be not far from me,
for trouble is near, for there are none to help me. Many bulls
have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me around. They gape upon me with their
mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. This was the state of our Lord
as our representative sinner under the wrath of God, hopeless
and helpless. He was alone and there was none
to help him. He was surrounded by his enemies.
These enemies consisted not only of the scribes and Pharisees
but of the strength of pagan Rome. They were the world's superpower
at this time. And it's these enemies that he
likens to bulls, but not just ordinary bulls. Bashan was a
place of rich soil and of good water where everything flourished,
especially the livestock. These enemies were the pinnacle
of worldly strength, both pagan and religious, and yet there was something even more
wicked driving them. It was Satan, that roaring lion
of 1 Peter 5. These men were incensed and they
were driven by their father Satan. Our Lord was surrounded by wickedness
and there was none to help him. Whenever we find ourselves overwhelmed
in our trials that God brings into our lives, when we find
ourselves contemplating His holiness as opposed to our own sinfulness.
When all hope is lost, we too become acutely aware that our
problems are much bigger than what we first thought they were,
or what we are able to deal with. We too become like righteous
light, vexed in our souls by the wickedness that surrounds
us both in the world and within our own flesh. We realise that
we are completely unable to help ourselves. We realise that we
are suddenly depleted of all our precious wisdom and strength.
This just makes our situation more desperate than ever. And at the same time, thankfully,
it makes our cries to God more diligent than ever. Verse 14,
I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax. It's melting in the midst of
my bowels. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt and my tongue
cleaveth to my jaws. And thou hast brought me into
the dust of death. It's really horrific to think
of our Lord this way. He's got no strength left. His
bones are out of joint because He physically couldn't support
himself on the cross anymore. The agonies and trauma of all
these atrocities and of carrying our sins had taken their toll
on his heart. He grew weaker, he was dehydrated
and the end was near. But he still acknowledged the
sovereignty of his Father in Heaven. Look back at the end
of verse 15. He says, Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. The saints of God, in the midst
of their suffering, those who really met the Lord, they're
caused in their trials to remember that no matter what the circumstances
are, our God worketh all things after the counsel of his own
will. And you know that applies to our sin as well. Listen to
what Isaiah says in Isaiah 63, 17. O LORD, why hast thou made
us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake
the tribes of thine inheritance. We are taught in our trials But
no matter how bad things get, our God, He really does reign. And this, brothers and sisters,
is the reason that we actually begin to accept our circumstances,
even the worst of them, as having come from the hand of our Sovereign
God. Verse 16. For dogs have compassed me about,
the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, They pierce my hands
and my feet. I may tell all my bones. They
look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them
and cast lots for my vesture." It's pretty amazing to think
that this was written a thousand years before it took place. I've
got no idea what the Jews do with it. But no matter how old this sermon
is, or this psalm is, Our Lord has embraced this reality from
eternity. He was a lamb slain before the
foundation of the world, but here he was in time suffering
on behalf of his Bride of the Church. He had been marred more
than any other man. He was surrounded by his enemies.
His strength was failing rapidly. He was just about dead and yet
at the height of his suffering, his hope rested firmly in the
sovereignty of God. What a great encouragement that
should be for suffering saints, even in their deepest, darkest
trials, to just wait on God. That's what Paul says in Galatians
5.5, For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. What other hope do we have at
these times, really? When all our precious wisdom
and strength fails, when the gravity of our circumstances
overwhelms us, when we realise that we've strayed a very long
way from the relationship we had with our Father in Heaven, when the awareness of our sin
crushes us, when all hope of rescue is completely gone. What
other hope is there than to just succumb to the sovereign will
of our Father in Heaven? Brothers and sisters, it's at
this lowest point, in God's perfect time, when we've suffered enough
to fulfil His sovereign purposes, whatever they might be, that
He not only makes His sovereignty a reality to us, He also makes
His faithfulness to His covenant promises a reality. What a gracious
gift of God it is, especially in the midst of our trials, to
restore our faith and to finally cause us to seek Him diligently. But be not thou far from me,
O Lord, my strength, O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver
my soul from the sword and my darling from the power of the
dog." And we'll just look at the first part of verse 21. Save
me from the lion's mouth. Did you notice that this psalm
began with our Lord being acutely aware of His separation from
His Father in Heaven and yet here in the midst of His greatest
trial His confidence is restored and He cries expectantly to His
Father. Our Lord desperately seeks communion
with His God and He acknowledges that all strength must come from
Him. We need to remember also that
this is a rescue mission from eternity The sword in verse 20
was the sword of God's holy justice against our sin. All the hopes
of every one of God's children rest completely in the soul of
Christ. But also, to not succeed here
was to not only lose his precious bride, it was also to fail on
behalf of the triune God and therefore cause his name to be
blasphemed in the world. In Philippians 3, Paul refers
to the concision, that's the Jewish leaders of the day, as
dogs. But you notice it's the power
of the dog that the Lord's appealing to his Father to save him from. And this power, I've said it
before, I've said it just earlier on, as much as it came from the
natural hatred within these men's hearts, it came from a greater
and more wicked source. It actually came from their father
Satan and it was fuelled by his own rage against our holy God. Peter in 1 Peter 5.8 describes
Satan as a roaring lion seeking who he may devour. Satan thought
he had the Lord right where he wanted him. Imagine his surprise
to realise that all his suffering, all his persecution and all his
agonies would actually result in the Lord triumphing over him. Brothers and sisters, there will
come a time in the midst of even the greatest of your sufferings.
I promise you, if you know the Lord, God promises you that our
God in grace will restore your faith. He will cause you both diligently
and expectantly to seek His face. And when our God has brought
you to this place, when He's purged you of all confidence
in the flesh, a place where all that matters is being in His
presence, a place where we really do seek Him diligently, then
He will. That's another promise. He will
reward that faith. that he so lovingly restored.
The last part of verse 21, For thou hast heard me from the horns
of the unicorn. The unicorns here represent the
wildest and most dangerous of oxen or bulls. Our Lord was at his lowest point.
He was about to breathe his last and it seemed as if his enemies
had prevailed. And then something amazing happens,
doesn't it? You notice here that it's actually
in the past tense. Thou hast heard. At this moment, in the depths
of his sorrow, our Lord receives confirmation from within that
his Father really has heard. What was there to indicate that
God had answered his prayers? The situation hadn't changed.
He was still on the cross. His enemies still surrounded
him. He was still suffering. He was still surely about to
die. What had changed? God his Father had drawn near
to him and by his very presence he comforted him and he rewarded
his faith. And remember this is the faith
that trusted in the Father's promise that he would or shall
save his people from their sins. This was also a much needed answer
to our Lord's prayer just prior to the cross in John 75 when
he prayed, And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own
self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Restoration of union with our
Father in Heaven necessarily brings with it all blessings
and all glory. Brothers and sisters, we are
so prone to be drawn away from our God by the many enticements
of the world that we desperately need the afflictions and the
sufferings that He brings into our lives. Our God describes himself in
Deuteronomy 32 saying, I kill and I make alive, I wound and
I heal. This is the chastening or the
discipline of our loving Father in Hebrews 12 and the purpose
is that we might be partakers of his holiness. It is also what
our God means in 2 Corinthians 12 when he says, My strength
is made perfect in weakness. So what's the point of all this?
The point is that if you do know God in a saving way, there really
will be a time when you drift away. You really will find yourselves
without God. You really will suffer trial
and persecution. And you really will, by grace,
through this suffering, be brought back into relationship with Him. Most of the time we can't really
comfort others, can we? Not really. But every time, every
single time, by God's grace, we can remind each other of the
One who can and does comfort His little ones. And just like
our Saviour, Our circumstances might not change straight away.
Our sufferings, they might not cease. But if you are the Lord,
there really will be a point where His Spirit will come and
will comfort your soul. It's a covenant promise of God.
It's at these times when the Great Comforter comes that we'll
know, just as Abraham did in Genesis 15. that our loving Father
in Heaven is without a doubt our exceeding great reward. May God give us all the grace
to remember that nothing in this world is beyond His sovereign
control and that all He ever does towards us is eternally
bound by His covenant of love. Let's pray.