Let us turn again to the psalm we read. Psalm 22, the psalm of David, and yet truly a greater than David is to be found throughout the psalm. And I want us to consider something of the content of the psalm for a while this evening. Last week we were Considering words in the 17th of John, of course, that's great high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus. We looked at what he has to say there at verses 17, 18, and 19, his prayer to the Father that he would sanctify not only his disciples but all that would come to saving faith through the ministry, the preaching of the gospel, sanctify them through thy truth, he says. Thy word is truth. And of course in that chapter we see Christ very much a praying priest, but as you know that only introduces us to what follows. Chapters 18 and 19 we see him still as a priest but there a sacrificing priest. John's detail as we have it also in the other synoptic gospels, great detail concerning all that the Lord Jesus Christ endured as he made the sacrifice, one sacrifice for sins forever. And all of it so graphically described all these many centuries before in the words of King David as we have it recorded here in Psalm 22 a Messianic Psalm if ever there was a Psalm that speaks of Jesus of Nazareth and the death that he died it must be this Psalm the opening words so familiar to us that awful cry that Christ made upon the cross in the midst of all the anguish, that sense of desertion. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the wounds of my roaring? It's one of the seven sayings that he utters from the cross and then at the end of the psalm in Psalm 31 I believe we have another of those sayings when he says they shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born that he hath done this he hath done this the last words and you will observe that this is in italics in other words it's been introduced it's not a word that has any Hebrew to substantiate it the translators have introduced it to bring out the sense as they understand it but they're honest and they show by the use of the italics that this is a word that they've interpolated, they brought it in, if we omit it, it literally says he has done, just three words and very similar of course to that other cry that we have from the cross when he says it is finished he had done the work, he had made the great sacrifice for sins and what a sacrifice it was What did the Lord endure there? He knew so much of physical suffering. He speaks here by David on what of those sufferings. Verse 6, I am a worm and no man. The reproach of men and despised of the people. Verse 14, 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 putrid, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws. And thou hast brought me into the dust of death." He's in the very dust of death, he's dying. Dying there upon the cross, there were physical sufferings. And much of this suffering, of course, very much at the hands of men, how they despised him, how they rejected him. And he speaks of them. Verse 12, many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round, they gaped upon me with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. And then again, verse 16, dogs of compassmen, the assembly of the wicked of enclosement. They pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones. They look and stare upon me. All these sufferings in the hands of wicked men. who rejected him and demanded his execution. His death was a penal death. There was a mockery of a trial, but it had to be so. It was no ordinary death that this man died. He died as a criminal, in a sense, paying the penalty that was due to the Holy Lord of God. paying the price of his people's redemption from that law. But of course, when we think of his sufferings, it's not so much that he's suffering at the hands of men, he's really suffering at the hands of God. His sufferings are spiritual in their very nature and we certainly see that in the opening words as he cries out in prayer, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? Oh, there were inward sufferings. There was that that was transpiring in the very depths of his soul. What awful darkness of soul he must have felt Remember what we are told in the Gospel at this time from the 6th hour there was darkness over all the land until the 9th hour it says and then he cries with a loud voice in the words of the opening verse from the 6th hour that's 12 noon for the next 3 hours when the sun would really be at its zenith and there he is suffering and the whole scene is enclosed by darkness, darkness over the whole earth. Is it not indicative of what was taking place in the soul of this poor man? This meek man, this man who is touched with the feeling of all our infirmities, a real man. a man who knows emotions. Let us not forget that. He's as much man as he is God. He's God-man in all that he does. That's the wonder, isn't it, of the incarnation. We rightly make much of the truth of his deity, that he is God and he's never anything less than God. But remember this, that from the time of his conception in the virgin womb of his mother, from that moment Even till now, he's God-man. In all the actions he performs, here upon earth, he's a man as well as God. True nature is but one person, and the suffering, one is the person. We misunderstand the doctrine of Christ if we think this only applies to his human nature. It's the person. that holy thing that shall be born of thee says the angel to the Virgin Mary shall be called the Son of God that holy thing what the human nature abided and a soul that is mysteriously joined to the eternal Son of God what the theologians would speak of as the hypostatic union two natures distinct natures they are, and yet those two distinct natures are but one person. It's a mystery. It's like the doctrine of God himself. God is one, and yet God is three persons. Well, Christ is one person, yet in that one person there are two natures. These are the great mysteries of the Christian faith. Oh, but the Lord, you see, here we are to remember what he must have been feeling as a man, what he must have been suffering. He's suffering the hidings of the face of God, and in many ways that's the chief. That's the worst part of all the sufferings that he's having to endure. This is the great wonder, isn't it, of the Book of Psalms. It's that great Irish Presbyterian of the 19th century, Henry Cook, who says that in the Messianic Psalms the veil is drawn aside and we're privileged to look into the soul of Christ. And that's what we're doing in this psalm, we're looking into his soul. We have the record in the Gospels of his crucifixion. But I do think that Cook is right. There's a wonder in the Psalms, and it's not just Psalm 22. Other Psalms are so remarkable in what they tell us with regards to how Christ suffered in his soul. And not only in the Psalms. Think of the language that we have in that great 53rd chapter of Isaiah. His soul shall make an offering for sin. There in verse 11, if we read it with the margin. His soul shall make an offering for sin is the literal rendering we're told of that 11th verse of that chapter. And here, what does he say in his prayer? Deliver my soul from the swords, my darling from the power of the dark, verse 20. Deliver my soul. It's parallel statements we have, my soul and then he has my darling. Or as the Margin says, My Holy One, for it's His soul. It's the soul of the Lord Jesus Christ, how He suffers in His soul. He has poured out His soul unto death. We have those words spoken there in again Isaiah 53 and verse 12 is pouring out his soul and what do we read here at verse 14 I am poured out like water the sufferings of the soul of the Lord Jesus what a mystery we have here then in the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ and as we come to it tonight I want really to deal with just two basic points for a little while first of all to say something with regards to his sense of desertion that we see in the opening words and then in the second place to consider his prayer his prayer of faith a sense of desertion and yet a prayer of faith because the psalm is principally a prayer certainly from verse 1 right through to verse 21 we see him addressing God in the in the first person he speaks to God it's a prayer and then in a sense from verse 22 to the end we see him speaking more particularly of God and acknowledging God as the one who has heard and answered his prayer and I think the significant verses really in the psalm we might say are what we have there at verses 21 and 22 where we see the turn from him praying really to him acknowledging God He says in verse 21, Save me from the lion's mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. And then he says, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation will I praise them. He prays to God, he praises God. But first of all, let's consider something with regards to this sense of desertion that's so evident in the opening words of the psalm. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? Why? Well, here we have the penalty that he is enduring. It's a penalty of sin. As I said, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is so evidently a penal death. The Jews, they rejected him. He comes to his own, his own receive him not. They will not have this man to rule over them. Time and again they would have stoned him. And they hated him. But they had no authority to execute a man. So, what do they do? Well, they they bring him before Pontius Pilate. Remember how we're told of these things in the Gospels, for example, there in the 18th chapter of John's Gospel, we read of them going from the High Priest into the Judgment Hall. John 18, 28, they led Jesus from Caiaphas onto the Hall of Judgment and it was early They themselves went not into the judgment, or lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. Pilate then went out unto them and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee. It's a trial. It's such a mockery of a trial. What is the charge? What is the charge? Well, later in chapter 19, verse 7, the Jews answer Pontius Pilate, we have a law, by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. That is the charge, you see. They say he's a blasphemer. He makes himself the Son of God. Wasn't that the great confession that he had made, that Peter had made at Caesarea Philippi, thou art the Christ. the Son of the Living God. Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood. I have not revealed it unto me, but my Father, which is in heaven, He is the Son of God, the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, the language of the ancient creed. And yet this man must die. And why must he die? Because he's going to pay the penalty of sin. Messiah, in the language of Daniel, must be cut off, but not for his own sin. And what will the punishment be? Death. He is the last Adam. And the first Adam is a type of this Adam. Remember what the old Puritan says concerning these two men? God sees these two men, the first Adam and the last Adam. two men and men, all men, all women are in either one or the other of those two atoms by nature we're all in the first atom but all by the grace of God Paul says I knew a man in Christ that's the Christian that's how Paul really describes himself, isn't it? I knew a man in Christ and here is the Lord Jesus Christ as that one who is going to bear the punishment of the sins of all those who are in him and that in him of course in terms of the covenant of grace they are the children which God gave to him in the eternal councils of the trinity we read concerning the first Adam there in the garden of Eden, the paradise of God. And God says to him quite clearly with regards to any disobedience, remember what he says, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. That is the penalty of disobedience. That is the consequence. And we see it and immediately Adam and Eve are dead in trespasses and sins. In the day that they eat us thereof, they shall truly die. Dying they shall die, the margin says. They died spiritually, they would eventually die physically. But then there is another death, isn't there? There's a second death, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. there must be some death that comes to the soul a spiritual death I'm not saying that the soul is ever annihilated it is not we have never dying souls but there is a punishment that is to be made there is a second death spoken of there in Revelation 20 and verse 6 what is that second death? it's an eternal death it is hell And Christ tasted that in some measure. Surely he did. He knew all that blackness of darkness. That's how he's described sometimes, the blackness of darkness. And when the Lord Jesus Christ dies, the state of things in the earth from the sixth hour to the ninth hour there was darkness. All the land was sunk in darkness. The penalty of sin is death. But what is that death? It's separation. It's separation. Of course, physical death is a separation of body and soul. The body returns to the dust as he was, the spirit goes to God who gave it, says the preacher in Ecclesiastes, there's a separation. There was a separation when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and they immediately knew that they were dead in trespasses and sins. What do they do when the Lord God comes into the garden in the cool of the day? They try to hide from Him. They're alienated from Him. There's no more communion with God. They're cut off from God. And God drives the man and the woman out of the garden, the end of Genesis chapter 3. They are far off from God. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hit his face from you. And what is hell? It is that final separation. That's the awfulness of how God made man in his likeness. God created him after his own image. God made man for himself. Augustine says it, doesn't he? The great Augustine of Hippo. Thou hast made us for thyself. Our souls are restless till they rest in thee. Man's chief end. In the language of the catechism. What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to know God and to enjoy Him forever so you think of hell you see there's no unbelievers in hell there's no atheism in hell they know that God is and they're cut off they're cut off from all fellowship with God they know nothing of God and yet they know that God is when the Lord tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and remember how they each die and they go to their own appointed place And Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham, the friend of God. He's a friend of God. How he'd suffered in this life, but now he's in the paradise of God. And the rich man dies, and he's in agonies. And he would that someone would just come and dip his finger in the water and touch his tongue. Oh, what agonies that man is in. And what do we read in the parable? The Lord says, there's a great gulf fixed. There's a great gulf fixed. None can go from one place to the other. Where the tree falls, there it lies. The person dies outside the grace of God, there's a great gulf fixed. Eternally cut off from God. Oh, it's awful, isn't it? And the Lord Jesus, in some sense, must have tasted that separation. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? On an occasion previous to his crucifixion, he says there in John chapter 12, now is my soul trouble. now is my soul troubled and what shall I say father save me from this hour but for this cause came I unto this hour father glorify thy name he says but he's troubled and you know the Puritan John Flavel says Christ was troubled as they in hell are troubled Christ was troubled He tasted hell, didn't he, in that sense? And that's what we have here at the beginning of the psalm. Of course, another psalm tells us concerning his sufferings, his death, his burial. Psalm 16, thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou shalt not leave my soul." Now that's the realm of the dead. He experiences a real death. He dies a death that's a penalty. It's a substitutory death. It's a penal death. It's for others. There was no real cause of death in him. he was the innocent one but he dies the just for the unjust but how real, how real are all his sufferings and look at the language that he uses here at the end of this opening verse he speaks of the words of my roaring oh what depth of feeling he was touched he's touched with the feeling of all our infirmities, all our our sinless infirmities, a real man, he has an emotional life. Do you ever think about that? He has an emotional life, the Lord Jesus. He knows human emotions, of course he does, he's a man. And he's a sinless man. That holy thing conceived in Mary's virgin womb and then born into this sinful world. What must he have felt to live in this world? And we're told, aren't we, by the Apostle, as he writes in his various epistles, he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin. He knew no sin, yet he's made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And we read of God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemning sin in the flesh. Oh, what a thing it must have been for this man. As I said, it's not only this psalm, this 22nd psalm that's messianic. Some say, and I'm very much inclined to the view myself, that every psalm, in a sense, is messianic. The Lord Himself says, doesn't He search the Scriptures? Search the Scriptures, full stop, that's all the Scriptures. Search the Scriptures. These are they that testify of me. But we know certain Psalms are most certainly messianic because there's reference to them in the New Testament Scriptures. We know that that is the case here. The words in verse 16, amongst other verses, they pierce my hands and my feet. Verse 18, they part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. These verses I refer to quite specifically in New Testament, in the Gospel. It's also the case with Psalm 69, which is a remarkable Messianic Psalm. And there we have the words of verse 9, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me and those words of Psalm 69 are taken up in the New Testament we see it there in John chapter 2 and verse 17 where Christ is driving the money changers and the buyers and sellers out of the temple and his disciples remembered it was written the zeal of thine house have eaten me up Psalm 69 and the latter part of that ninth verse the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon thee why Paul takes those words off doesn't he in Romans 15 and verse 3 So we know that Psalm 69, like Psalm 22, no question at all, this Psalm speaks prophetically of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's in the Psalm. And what does Christ say in Psalm 69? Verse 5, O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee. He uses that language. This is the Lord Jesus. Thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from thee and yet he is wisdom. Proverbs 8. He's a sinless one. It reminds us, does it not, of the glorious truth that all the sins of his people are accounted, reckoned, imputed to his account. he must suffer, he must die as the great sin bearer but what that must have cost him this man this weak man the real man and yet being treated as if he's a great sinful man. There is no such thing at all. He cries out there then at the beginning of Psalm 69, Save me, O God, for the waters are coming unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. I am coming to deep waters where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying. Well, he cries, My God, my God, why? My throat is dry and my eyes fail while I wait for my God. Let us never lose sight of who it is. It's God, yes, but we're foolish if we think that the Lord Jesus is some sort of stoic. He has real feelings, this man. Because he's a man. And he's being treated so cruelly, rejected of me. despised of me now they ridicule and scoff there at the cross and they taunt him come down from the cross and will believe that you are the son of God and he could easily have done that but now he will be obedient unto death even the death of the cross all the wonder of this the innocent obedient Son of God. And yet, here we see Him the suffering Son of God, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Oh, what a contrast. He says here at verse 6, I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despise of the people. But what does He say in the Gospel? Before Abraham was, I am. And all the time he was here upon the earth in the state of humiliation, he was never anything but I am that I am. He is always Jehovah Jesus. Always Jehovah Jesus. And yet Jehovah Jesus says here, I am a worm and no man. Oh, there's mystery. What a great mystery it is. the mystery of the incarnation but also the mystery of the crucifixion what do we see here then we see something of the reality of his sufferings as he endures the penalty of the broken law as he dies in the sinners room instead the great doctrine of course of substitutionary atonement it's our salvation isn't it to our salvation we live because he died but I said also we must observe his prayer the psalm is principally a prayer certainly there from verse 1 right through verse 21 then the change when instead of addressing God and speaking to him in the first person, he uses the third person and speaks of God. But even then, he says at verse 25, speaking to God, my praise shall be of thee in the great congregation. But then he says again at the end of that verse, I will pay my vows before them that fear him. So he speaks of God in the third person. But the psalm is principally a prayer. And do we not see the reality of his human nature in that he has to live the life of faith? He lives the life of faith as a man. He has lived the life of faith. In the days of his flesh when he offered up prayer and supplication with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared. Oh, he feared. What does that mean? There was piety there. He feared God. He feared God as a man. Of course he did. Though he were a son, the eternal Son of God yet learned the obedience by the things that he suffered. He was truly man. And therefore it was good, it was proper that he had faith. And how is that faith expressed? He prays. He expresses his complete and utter dependence upon his father. He prays on the cross. That's what we see the Lord doing in this remarkable psalm. It's a prayer. Or the praying of the Lord Jason. What a prayer it is. Look at the language. It's the language of appropriation. He doesn't say God. Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me? No, he says, my God. My God, he repeats it. It's the language of appropriation. He's bereft really. He's derelict. It's a cry of dereliction, isn't it? And yet, and yet God is near. He's my God still. Doesn't that teach us something? Maybe there are times when we feel that God is so very far off. We've sinned and we feel that God is very far off. But when we can use this language and say, my God, my God. What a paradox is in this. God is near to him and yet God is far from him at one and the same time. And see how he prays to God. He speaks of the fathers, our fathers, he says, verse 4. 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. He's speaking of the fathers. He's speaking of the very birth. of the nation really, he's speaking of the days of Moses when Moses was the great deliverer who brought them out of all the bondage that was Egypt in Exodus 3 we have the account don't we of the call of Moses to go there and to challenge Pharaoh and to bring the people out by mighty deeds and the ten plagues, how God is in that But remember the context, because we see, don't we, what the situation was from what we're told in the end of chapter 2. The king of Egypt dies. The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried. And their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God looked upon the children of Israel and God had respect unto them. Oh, how they sighed. Here they are groaning their prayer out, pleading with God to remember the covenant. And what is the Lord doing? Is He not here reasoning with the Father? Reminding God, this is how we are to pray, take with us words, what words? Let's take the words of scripture, let's remind God of who he is and what he's done. 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. Oh how deep, you see, are the sorrows of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is trusting. They trusted. Three times there in those verses. Trusted, trusted, trusted. And He is trusting in God. What does He say at verse 3? Thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. You see after those opening words, those first two verses where He's crying to God and yet he's not silent. He's groaning his prayers out and there's no response it seems. But thou art holy. He reminds God he's the Holy One. He's the Holy One. How can he refuse to hear his prayer? Oh, what boldness in prayers! God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said it, shall he not do it? Hath he spoken it, shall he not make it good? Is he not true to his word? Thou art a holy God, a righteous God, a just God. This is real prayer that we see the Lord himself uttering. And there he uses that blessed name, Lord. Jehovah, the I am that I am. As he comes towards the end of the prayer really, verse 19, Be not thou far from me, O Lord, O my strength, haste thee to help me. The prayer of the Lord, you see, is praying in faith, for what faith it is. in all the midst of his sufferings. And as I said, the pivotal part really of the psalm is what we have in verses 21 and 22. I know he speaks of the unicorns. What are unicorns? Well, previously he's spoken of wild animals In verse 12, many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round, they gait upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and roaring lion, those about the cross. Read through Matthew 27 and see it one after the other, taunting you. These are the wild bulls, these are the wild dogs. Verse 16 Dogs have compassed me, 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. These are being spoken of there where he makes mention of the unicorns in verse 21, the horns of the unicorns. also despised, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, rejected of man, the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. But then, what does he come to? Verse 24, he hath not despised, nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath he hid his face from him, but when he cried unto him he heard. He heard. He didn't pray in vain. Oh, this man, Jesus of Nazareth, he did not pray in vain. And he did accomplish all the goodwill and pleasure of God. That's what he says when we come to the end of the psalm, isn't it? He had done. Oh, it is finished. he's finished the transgression, he's made an end of sin, he's made reconciliation for iniquity, he's brought in everlasting righteousness, he's sealed the vision and the prophecy all that could ever be known of God we have in this man even the Lord Jesus Christ himself and how he prays there to his father as he turns from addressing his Disciples remember John 14, 15, 16 those discourses and then we come to chapter 17 and what does he say as he turns from addressing them having spoken these words he turns addresses the father and says I have glorified thee on the earth I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do and again on the cross he utters those words it is finished He has done. And you know this is a message that's to be proclaimed. That's what He's saying at the end of the psalm. They shall come and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born. Oh, it's to go to the ends of the earth, this message. Verse 27, 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 the governor among the nations verse 30 a seed shall serve him a seed shall serve him it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation all he is to see is the travail of his soul and he shall be satisfied isn't that the language that we have in that great 53rd chapter there in Isaiah's book The Prophecy of Isaiah those remarkable words so similar in many ways to what we have here in Psalm 22 and it speaks there of his seed at the end of that chapter verse 10 he pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin or as I say with the margin his soul shall make an offering for sin he shall see his seed he shall prolong his days the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many for he shall bear their iniquities all the similarity you see with what Isaiah is saying and what David says by inspiration here the 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 had done this the message is to be proclaimed his righteousness is to be declared he's not only obedient in dying he's obedient in living isn't he He is honoured, He has magnified the Lord in life and in death. He is honoured and magnified the law with regards to all its precepts and commandments and statutes and judgements, holy, harmless, on default, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens, the Lord our righteousness. Well, that righteousness is to be declared. and that righteousness unto death, even the death of the cross. They shall come and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born that He hath done this. All the work is finished. Well, we come presently as a church to sit around the table of the Lord and we remember that, don't we, that glorious truth. All is finished. Do not doubt it, but believe thy dying Lord. Never reason more about it, solely trust it to His Word. Oh God, help us then to believe the truth as God set it before us here in the psalm. The Lord bless His Word to us. Amen.