We're in Psalm 88, and I want to begin with verse 1. I want to read through this psalm in its entirety, and then we'll come back and we'll take a look at this in an overview way.

He says in verse 1, O Lord God of my salvation, and the word Lord there is Jehovah, because it's all capitalized, O Jehovah God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before Thee. So it's an unceasing cry. He says, Let my prayer come before thee, incline thine ear unto my cry. For my soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. And the word there actually can be translated as hell. So he's in serious, he's in serious situation here. His soul is full of troubles and his life draws near to the grave or to hell.

He says in verse four, I am counted with them that go down into the pit. The word counted means he's reckoned. He's accounted as, he is imputed as one who goes down to the pit. I am as a man that has no strength, free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more, and they are cut off from thy hand. So you can see that in this psalm, notice how many ways he speaks of the dark situation he's in. In the beginning he says he cries day and night. His prayer comes before the Lord. He asks him to hear his cry. His soul is full of troubles. His life draws near the grave. He's reckoned or considered to be one of those that go down into the pit like a man who has no strength and he's free among the dead. In other words, his only freedom is freedom from life. He's among the dead. And he is remembered no more. He is one cut off from the hand of the Lord.

So in verse six, thou hast laid me in the lowest pit. You can't get any lower. in darkness, in the deeps." So this is the lowest place you can possibly be. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Sila. You can see the terrible affliction he's under here. And notice how he speaks about this affliction as being from the Lord. Thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me. So now he talks about his friends. He says, Thou hast made me an abomination to them. I am shut up and I cannot come forth. They consider him abominable, his friends. Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon Thee. I have stretched out my hands unto Thee. You can see he's not departing. He's not going to another comforter. He's calling upon the Lord himself.

Verse 10, "'Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee, Selah, since he is about to die?' He's asking this question. And it's a kind of a rhetorical question, because certainly God's people will be raised from the dead, and the Lord Jesus himself. So this is why it's asked this way, is to heighten our attention to the truth of the resurrection, even though in his experience here, he's describing his own situation as being among the dead. So this is hope facing death, isn't it? Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? So the grave is compared to a place of forgetfulness. And that's important.

Verse 13. But unto thee have I cried, O Lord, and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee, go before thee in the morning. Lord, why castest thou off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. So this trouble he's in is not new. It's something he's had with him from his youth. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me. Thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily like water. They compassed me about together. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance into darkness.

Now it's interesting, as you read this psalm, there's nothing said here except for verse one that's upbeat. This is a very low situation, a low condition, an affliction that is extreme. So that's the first thing I want to see here is that the afflictions in this psalm, they're extreme, aren't they? They're the most severe. that can be described here.

Now I've often referred to this psalm myself when I've looked at the New Testament and looked into the meaning of baptism. In Matthew chapter 20, Jesus asked James and John if they were able to be baptized with the baptism he would be baptized with, or to drink the cup that he would drink. And they said, you know, ignorantly and presumptuously, yes, we are. And so Jesus was referring to his own death in that scripture in Matthew chapter 20, around verse 22.

And so I refer to this because in this psalm, in Psalm 88, he talks about death, he talks about the grave, he talks about being forsaken and forgotten by God. And this is what scripture tells us baptism refers to. It is about our death, our burial, and our resurrection with the Lord Jesus Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. And for that reason, it's significant because baptism is significant because it signifies our union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.

In his death, our sins, the body of our sins, were put to death. They died. And in his grave, the body of our sins were put out of God's mind. It's the grave. It's a place of forgetfulness. God considers and he calls it the place where there's no more remembrance. And so our sins are remembered no more. And then obviously, in Christ's having made full satisfaction to God for our sins, He rose and we rose with Him and in His resurrection we were given life from the dead. So that's what baptism signifies. That's the truth. and that's what this psalm is speaking about in the grave, here being buried and forgotten by God.

But that's not the, I don't think that's the main teaching of this psalm, baptism. Baptism is a sign. It's a sign that we were given, the Lord gave it to us, and he said that we should be baptized if we are a believer. If we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then we are to confess Christ in baptism. And there's nothing more I guess there's no higher privilege than to be able to, in our baptism, to know that this is expressing what the Lord is teaching, our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

But again, I don't think that's the main teaching of this psalm, that it would point forward to a sign of our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, but to the fact itself, to our true union with Christ in His sufferings and in His death. And here we see him praying.

Now, let me just say this by way of introduction. This psalm is clearly the prayer. It's a prayer of a man. It says in verse two, let my prayer come before thee. It's the prayer of a man of God because he's obviously trusting in the Lord. He calls the Lord his God and the God of his salvation in verse one, for example. So he's a man of God and he's suffering. He's suffering not just a trifle, or like we suffer when we have a physical affliction, but he's suffering in his soul, and he's suffering in his body, he's suffering in his mind. And this suffering he's experiencing is the wrath of God.

He says in verse 7, Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy ways. Whatever he's describing here, is not an exaggeration of the truth. He's not saying, well, it's like this because I'm in such distress, but it's not that bad, really. That's not the way scripture is written. The Lord is saying, this is the truth, and in fact, the reality of it is more severe than these words can describe.

What does the wrath of God mean if we were to experience it? We don't know, do we? No one experiences God's wrath in that sense. So the psalm is a prayer of the man of God suffering under the wrath of God. And it was a man, a man who was suffering here. And as a man of God, he describes his suffering as being under the wrath of God. And it's evident from the psalm that this is the case.

But when I read this psalm, I thought of the words that the Ethiopian asked Philip. Remember in Acts chapter 8, he said to Philip, he said, I pray thee, as he was reading Isaiah 53, of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself or of some other man. So this psalm is a prophecy. And it's speaking of a man, but the question is, which man? Who is this man? Surely, it has to be the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to give some reasons why I think that is so.

Let me say in kind of a negative way, and I don't mean to be too critical, but when someone says something that I believe is wrong and they're somebody that should, you know, they're often referred to, if they make a mistake like this, I do want to correct it. John Calvin wrote commentaries on most of the Bible. And he often has this pattern in his commentaries on the Psalms. He seems to restrict himself needlessly and to a fault to avoid applying the Psalms to Christ. I think that's wrong. I think that's really wrong.

And the reasons that he gives for this psalm, I mean, you can ask the question, what is the purpose of this psalm? The reason he gives for this psalm are observing a man who trusts in God under affliction, even though he's under the affliction, and therefore we can see God's faithfulness to his people, and yet he admits that the man is just a man who has faults. In fact, John Calvin says that his complaint here is wrong. So I have a real problem with that.

So I just point that out not to try to elevate myself above John Calvin. He's certainly smarter than I am or was. But I'll show you that it doesn't matter who we listen to. It doesn't matter what title he has or she has. Scripture has to be our guide. Scripture is the foundation. Scripture is the truth. It's not what a person says. So always use Scripture. to determine whether or not whatever is said about scripture is true, whether it be me or anybody. Even the Apostle Paul made that same statement in Galatians. He said, though I or an angel from God preach any other gospel than I have preached to you, let him be anathema.

So that was a serious charge that he was laying to those who would preach a false gospel. But anyway, I just point it out because John Calvin does do that, and if you ever read his commentaries, you might find things in there. that you would disagree with, and that's one of them. I told my wife today, John Calvin was not a Calvinist. That seems strange, but he says some things that are against what is normally confessed to be Calvinist doctrine, Calvinistic doctrine. So, anyway, let me move on to a more positive view of the psalm now. And that's not unique to John Calvin. Other men do that. It seems like they're concerned about applying the words of scripture to the Lord Jesus Christ, and so they avoid the truth that's being taught there.

Let me say this, though, and this is a bold statement, I think. I believe this psalm speaks only of Christ. I think it's talked about him in a way that no other person has ever experienced. Not in their own personal experience. People feel like they're under God's wrath. They might feel that way. But no one has suffered like the Lord Jesus Christ.

And let me use scripture now to talk to that point here. So, in doing that, I want to make that as sort of an overview summary statement of what follows now, is that Christ is the man, Christ is the man who drank, what I mean by drinking, enduring. He drank the full cup of the wrath of God unmixed and unmitigated. He drank it into his soul, into his body. And he suffered the wrath of God. Okay?

So, let me also say this. Scripture talks about wrath from God. And there are examples, historical examples, that Scripture records for us of the outpouring of God's judgments.

For example, the flood of Noah. Or, how about Cain? Cain killed his brother Abel and God sent Cain out from the presence of the Lord. That was a judgment, wasn't it? God sent Adam and Eve, for example, out of the Garden of Eden. That was a judgment.

The flood of Noah came and destroyed everyone and everything on the earth, every living thing except Noah and his family and those animals that God had in the ark. That was a judgment. It was severe, wasn't it? Who knows how many millions of people died in that flood.

Obviously, when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, that was a judgment. Lot's wife was turned to a pillar of salt. That was a judgment. Remember the people of Judah and Jerusalem were taken captive by the Babylonians and held in captivity for 70 years and afflicted. And the book of Jeremiah gives a catalog of that prophecy and lamentation is the weeping of Jeremiah over that affliction of that nation. So that was also a judgment.

And then, of course, there's many others, but you can read about the destruction of Jerusalem prophesied in Matthew 24 and other places. And Jesus said to the Jews, He was preaching in Matthew 23, He said, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, How often I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers its chicks under its wings, but you would not. Therefore your house is left unto you desolate."

And in the book of 1 Thessalonians it says, wrath has come upon the Jews to the uttermost. So you can see these are judgments from God. There's no question about it.

Is that the unmitigated and unmixed wrath of God? The answer is no, because that wrath is reserved for after the final judgment. God is going to pour out his unmixed wrath on the wicked in final judgment, and that's when that wrath will come upon men.

And let me show you how I think this psalm is about the Lord Jesus Christ alone, that He was bearing the wrath of God. The first reason I would give here is that the Lord Jesus, according to the Gospel, saved his people from the wrath of God. He saved them from the wrath of God. And how did he do that? How did Jesus Christ save his people from the wrath of God? Did he just deflect that wrath? Did he just sort of stand between them like some kind of a marvel hero, hold up a shield and bounce that wrath back? No, not at all. He suffered the wrath of God in his own person, himself, and he experienced it in his soul and in his body. That's the way he saved his people from wrath, as he had to endure the wrath of God.

1 Thessalonians, it says, Jesus delivered us from the wrath to come. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 10. And then in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, it says, God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us. That's the way he delivered us. He died for us. So that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. That's 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

And then in Romans 5.9 it says, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him, through the Lord Jesus Christ. So it was by his blood he justified us and it was by his blood he delivered us from the wrath to come. So Galatians 3 verse 13 says, Christ hath redeemed us, that means saved us, delivered us, set us at liberty from the wrath of God. He says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. So there's the substitution. How did Christ deliver us from the curse of God's law? He himself took the curse and bore it for us. He was made a curse. It says, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Christ himself was cursed for us.

And then 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 24 it says, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes we were healed. So it's clear it was by his stripes that we are healed because he bore our sins in his own body on the cross. Isaiah 53 is obvious. He bore the sins of His people. We'll look at that in a moment here.

But I want to give you those cases and then there's one more I want to mention before we get to the next point here is that in John 3 verse 13 And through verse 16, he says, he himself, as the son of man, is the only one who ascended up to heaven, because to ascend up to heaven required first that he descend from heaven, and only the son of man could descend from heaven. And heaven is only his to ascend up to and take possession of, so he's the only one who could ascend, but he had to first descend. into the lower parts of the earth.

And he says in that same place, John 3 verse 14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So there's that perishing under the wrath of God. Instead of perishing, they have everlasting life. because he bore the curse as that serpent then was lifted up by Moses and hung on a pole so that all who were bitten and had no remedy for the bite that came upon them because of their rebellion against God and Moses and Christ himself they were healed from that bite.

So now all these historical cases then fell upon people. But it was not the wrath of God without mixture. That wrath, that full cup of God's unmixed wrath came upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It says this in Revelation chapter 14, So, here we see that this is the final judgment. The beast, the false prophet, those who follow the beast and receive that mark in their own name, they are cast into eternal torment under the unmixed without mixture, the wrath of God, the cup of His indignation. But that's reserved to the Day of Judgment. And that judgment is the judgment from which we are saved. And that judgment from which we are saved was the eternal wrath of God, which we do not experience. We do not come into condemnation. We've already passed from death to life. because the Lord Jesus Christ, our eternal surety, our savior, the lamb of God, has bore in himself our sins in his body on the tree.

All right, so the Lord Jesus, this is why this psalm is about him only. First, because he's the one who delivered us from the wrath of God by bearing our sins and enduring the wrath due to us from God for our sins, okay? That's the first reason. And that's clear from scripture. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

In 1 Peter chapter 1, he says the salvation that is, let me read that to you. So 1 Peter chapter 1, this is a significant text of scripture to help us understand how Psalm 88 is about only the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in 1 Peter chapter 1 that You will be receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come to you.

How could this grace come to us? The next verse says, they, those prophets, were searching what, or what manner of time, notice, the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify when that spirit testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow because of his sufferings.

Okay, so he's summarizing the prophets. The message of the prophets was twofold, the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. That's how ubiquitous, that's how ever present you find this truth in the scripture, Christ must suffer. And in consequence of his accomplishing the sufferings by the will of God that God gave him to do and to finish, he would be exalted.

That's what it means when he first descended and then ascended. That's what it means when God is going to exalt him because he humbled himself and was made in the likeness of sinful man and became a servant and was obedient unto death and that's why God has highly exalted him.

So you can see this throughout scripture. Over and over again in the New Testament, in the Gospels, Jesus tells his disciples, it's necessary that I suffer and rise again from the dead. He told the Pharisees, he says, if you're offended by that, how much more will you be offended when you see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of glory, seated at the right hand of God and coming in the clouds of glory? That will offend you then.

So that's, again, that's the glory of Christ because of following the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. So He was made a curse for us and that's why we are delivered from wrath. That's how God delivered us from wrath. That's what the word, in fact, propitiation means. The mercy seat, remember? Propitiation means someone, Christ, is the propitiation, is the mercy seat where God is atoned. Reconciliation is made between sinners and God and we're made one, we're brought back by the satisfaction Christ made in his own blood to God's justice and the appeasing of his wrath by bearing our sins and enduring the wrath for those sins in his own body.

Alright, so that's the first reason. This psalm has to be speaking of Christ. It's because he delivered us from the wrath to come by bearing that wrath in himself, in his soul, and in his body. Alright, secondly, The second reason is that all these cases which you look in scripture from whether it be Cain or Sodom and Gomorrah or the flood of Noah or whatever it is, the captivity of the Babylonians, that Jeremiah weeps over and so on, all those cases would show that God, in those cases, God would spare an entire population of people for the sake of a few.

Remember, Abraham prayed, Lord, will not the judge of all the earth do right? Would you destroy the righteous with the wicked? No. No, God won't. He won't destroy the righteous with the wicked. That's why God is sparing the world. That's why God spared Noah and his family. Because God saw that he was righteous. He found grace in his sight. He imputed to Noah the very obedience and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Delivered him from wrath. And that was pictured by the Ark.

So in all these cases, whether it be Sodom and Gomorrah or the flood or whatever it was, there was always a remnant. And for the sake of the remnant, God's anger was turned away from them. At least that was the promise of God. So in wrath, God remembered mercy. So in those cases on earth, even in those cases that seem severe and extreme, in God's wrath, there was mercy.

But in the final judgment, there's no mercy for the wicked, is there? None whatsoever. There's no... Christ himself, the Lamb of God, it says in Revelation 14, it's his wrath that comes. The one who is himself the mercy seat is the one who then will bring wrath from God upon those who reject him.

All right, so that's the second reason. First, because Christ saved us from the wrath of God by burying it in himself. Second, because in the historical cases of God's wrath throughout scripture, there's always God's wrath is mitigated. It's mixed with mercy because God remembers mercy and wrath and he saves the whole for the sake of a few.

In the book of Genesis, remember the king of Nineveh told his people, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not. So there was always that hope of mercy even in that pronouncement of God's wrath. And so we also see that God gave men and women time to repent. When Noah preached, even in the days of Noah, He preached for how long? 120 years? And so all through that time, he was preaching. The Spirit of Christ was in Noah, preaching to those people then who were disobedient. As he says in 1 Peter 3, they were disobedient in that day. And those men who were disobedient then, their spirits now are in bondage, they're in prison. He says in 1 Peter 3, and they will be held accountable, but the wrath that will come upon them in the final judgment.

And then the other reason that we know that Christ is the one spoken of here in this psalm is that because God is just. God is just. For God to justify or I'm sorry, for God to justly punish sin, he will await the final judgment. God will punish sin. He will punish sin. God is just. So he will bring wrath unmixed. And that's what he speaks of in Revelation in several places. And he will punish sin.

But this is the gospel message today. that He does punish sin, and because He punishes sin, because He is impartial in the application of His justice, therefore when sin was found on the Lord Jesus Christ, He brought upon Him what His justice required. And this is why this psalm becomes so precious to us. It shows us that the Lord Jesus Christ really suffered the just wrath of God. He really suffered it because God is just. And so His justice is holy. He's not going to soften the blow of His justice. That would be to deny His justice the satisfaction. The satisfaction that God Himself in the infinite holiness and justice of God requires to please Himself. That's why Christ is precious to God. because he gave himself in order to magnify and bring satisfaction to God, to his justice, to every attribute of God, but particularly to his justice.

You can see God's justice in the cross. You can see it in the fact that God did not spare his son. He delivered him up. That's just, isn't it? When sin was found in him, he did not spare him. And this was by God's will. And so Christ, in this psalm, we can see that not only the justice of God, but you see the faithfulness, the obedience of Christ out of love, out of love for God's law and justice and judgment and truth and righteousness. in order to abundantly shed forth his grace and mercy.

So you can see that the other reason here that this can't be talking about a mere man is because God's wrath is a just wrath and no man, no man can ever endure that wrath. except one, the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone who experiences God's wrath at the final judgment will experience that wrath for eternity, because it's never satisfied in that case. But here it is. God's justice is holy as He is holy. And the punishment that God requires is a punishment proportionate to His own dignity that we offended by our sin when we, in our pride and in our covetousness, asserted ourselves in our minds and in our hearts to place ourselves before Christ Himself. To make ourselves as important, more important, by honoring ourselves and serving ourselves in idolatrous, covetous pride.

These things have to be dealt with, and God's justice will deal with them. He'll either deal with them in our Savior, in our surety, which He did at the cross, or He'll deal with them in us personally. That's why it's so essential that we flee the wrath to come by looking to Christ and trusting Him. So that's the other reason here that the Lord, it has to be speaking of Christ, is because God is just. He doesn't mix wrath with some kind of a compromise. When He pours out His wrath, it's real, it's full, and that's what He's going to do. He's not influenced by sinful man. He does what He does because He's true to Himself.

Alright, another reason here is that, well I've already covered this, that the Lord is going to bring his wrath upon men in an unmixed and unending way. I heard this when we were back in Arkansas and I felt like even though it's slightly off the topic here, David Pledger said this in one of his sermons. He says, some people, you know, you've heard of these people who shake their fist toward the sky and they say, I don't believe there's a God. If there's a God, let him strike me dead right now on the spot. And so they wait, nothing happens. And they raise their voice and they shake their fist and they get red in the face and they boast and they beat their chest and nothing happens to them. Because they're defying God, aren't they? Openly, publicly defying God. It would seem like God would judge them, wouldn't it? But why doesn't he? Why doesn't he? Because it's not his character. It's not his character. Think about this. God is just. And David Pleasure said that perhaps God has one of his people in that person's children and he's not going to judge them before that time. Or perhaps he's going to turn that individual himself like he did the Apostle Paul. and have mercy upon him. He can do that, can't he? He does it all the time. And so God acts according to his character, and his character is that he delights in mercy. And he does this for his own name's sake, for his own honor, the honor and the glory of his perfections.

Alright, let me shift gears now and change to, in support of this claim that this psalm is speaking only about Christ as the one enduring the wrath of God. It's because the Lord Jesus Christ was said to be the one who was afflicted with God's wrath. Notice in Psalm 88, verse 6, he says, Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit. in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy ways."

Now that conjures up, that brings up to our remembrance what God said about Jonah, doesn't it? Remember Jonah? Jonah is in the Minor Prophets and how I find it is usually by flipping around in here because I think it's after Obadiah. But who can find Obadiah? It's after Amos and so on. So you end up, you go to Daniel, then Hosea, then Joel, and Amos, and Obadiah, you finally get to Jonah.

Jonah says this in verse 11 of chapter 1, Jonah 1, verse 11. He says, then these mariners said to Jonah, What shall we do to you? What shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm to us? Okay, that was their question. Jonah said, look, I was told by God I need to go to Nineveh. I said, no, I got in this boat to escape and here I am. That's why the sea is doing what it's doing. That's why your lives are threatened. And so they said, well, what should we do then? What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm to us? You see, we'll do something to Jonah so that the sea can be calm to us. And it says here in that same verse, that the sea may be calm to us, for the sea wrought and was tempestuous. And he said to them, take me up and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm to you. For I know that for my sake, this great tempest is upon you.

So what would we be under? What would we experience if it weren't for Christ? we would experience these waves that would bring us to death and below. So he says in verse 13, nevertheless the men, after hearing that they were supposed to throw Jonah overboard, they didn't want to do that, so they rode hard to bring it to the land, but they couldn't. for the sea wrought and was tempestuous against them, wherefore they cried to the Lord, and they said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood, for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. They say in those words that Jonah's blood was innocent, we don't want to be guilty of killing an innocent man, and doesn't that speak of Christ? And so they said, Thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee." Didn't it please the Lord to Bruce's son, for his people?

And so they took up Jonah, and they cast him forth into the sea. It was God's determinate will and foreknowledge that Christ was delivered up. And the sea ceased from a raging, and then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered sacrifices to the Lord and made vows. And so the Lord says in verse 17 of Jonah 1, the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Why do I even mention this scripture in relationship to Psalm 88? Because in verse 7 he says, Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. And that's what Jonah is going to experience.

In chapter 2 he says, Then Jonah prayed to the Lord after they threw him into the sea, prayed to the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and he said, I cried by reason of mine affliction. There's that word again from Psalm 88. I cried, like the psalmist in Psalm 88, by reason of my affliction to the Lord. He heard me out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice, for thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed me about all thy billows, and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I'm cast out of thy sight. And that's what Psalm 88's talking about.

Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul. The depth closed me around about. The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever. Yet thou hast brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto thee into thy holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord."

Okay? You see that? And then the Lord spake to the fish, vomited out Jonah on the dry land.

So what happened here? Well, Jonah sinned. And God brought trouble. And then he cried. Jonah cried in his trouble. And God saved him.

Now, think about this. Psalm 88. What is the psalmist saying here in Psalm 88 about trouble? He's saying that the trouble that he's experiencing is from the Lord. So the trouble is from God. What is the trouble due to? Well, in Jonah's case, it was due to his own personal sin, but in Christ's case, it was due to sins he owned, but not sins that he committed. He owned the sins of his people because as their surety, he stood before God in all of his holiness to answer for them with himself. He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree. that we being dead to sins might live unto righteousness by whose stripes we were healed.

So Jonah then, we know from Matthew 12, verse 39 and 40, Jonah was a type of Christ. Christ himself would go, he said, into the heart of the earth three days and three nights, just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish. So the prophecy of Jonah was speaking about what? the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow. And so he's saying here in Psalm 88, therefore, he's speaking because it was prophesied, just like in Jonah, and Jesus said his own sufferings and death and burial were typified by Jonah, so this psalm also has to be about him. So you can see that here in this psalm. that it was the Lord Jesus Christ who said this.

Now, I want to take you to a couple of other places in Lamentation, which follows the book of Jeremiah. In Lamentation, which means the crying of Jeremiah over Jerusalem, which was taken into the severe affliction of Babylonish captivity. Many of them died. They were there 70 years and they were afflicted. And if you read the book of Lamentations, you might wonder, is God spending all this time to talk about a nation of people who were taken into captivity? Is the book of Jeremiah and the prophet Jeremiah weeping over that nation, both in the book of Jeremiah and in Lamentations? Is that meant to teach us about the sufferings of the nation of Israel for their sin? Is that what it's really describing here? Or is it the fact that they typified the Church of God suffering in their Lord, in the Lord Jesus Christ? because of their unity with him, because they were buried, died with him and buried with him and they suffered that wrath. Isn't it that? Isn't that the gospel? And isn't scripture contain the gospel throughout, it has to be revealed to us as it is in the New Testament? That's what I'm convinced of.

So when we read Lamentations chapter 1 and verse 12, notice what it says there. This is Jeremiah in the historical application. The prophet Jeremiah is speaking regarding the people of Judah and Jerusalem. But in the spiritual application of it, which is the real and the eternal explanation of what's written here, it's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ suffering and his people, therefore, suffering the wrath they deserve in him.

Notice, he says in verse 12 of Lamentation chapter 1, Lamentation 1 verse 12, is it nothing to you, all you that pass by, behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done to me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. Can anyone endure the fierce anger of God? And then under that wrath, both endure it and under that wrath, justify God and pray in trust and even in love? Because the experience of the wrath of God is a submission of obedience? Is there any man but the Lord Jesus Christ who could suffer that?

Think of this. If Psalm 88 were about a mere man, not Christ, then we would wonder This man, this man suffered just like the Lord Jesus Christ. And God delivered him because he prayed? What? Because he was a man of integrity? Because he had this proper attitude? Why then did Christ even need to die? You see, the whole conclusion that Psalm 88 is talking about a mere man dissolves into a scam, really, because it exalts a man instead of Christ alone. So it has to be speaking about Him.

And here He says in Lamentations, the prophecies, Spirit of Christ in the prophets, speaking of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. All of his people suffered in him." That's what he's saying. They suffered his fierce anger.

Verse 13 of Lamentation 1, he goes on, he says, from above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them. He hath spread a net for my feet. He hath turned me back. He hath made me desolate and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand, their wreath, and come up upon my neck. He hath made my strength to fail. The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. So here we can see that this is talking about Christ for the sins of his people, suffering what their sins deserved.

And then look at Lamentations chapter 3, just verse 1. He says, I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. You see that? I'm the man. Again, if this was speaking about a mere man, then we would mistakenly compare that man to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ and put them on par, wouldn't we? And that is not possible. No one could suffer what Christ alone suffered. The unmixed, unmitigated wrath of God poured into a cup of indignation and given to him to drink into his very soul. He drank it, and that's what he speaks of in Matthew, chapter 26, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he says to his father, Father, let this cup pass from me. And he was suffering sorrow, heavy sufferings unto death, and he's asking his father to deliver him from this. And so you can see this, then, that this has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ.

All right, well we've reached the end of our time and I won't be able to go into the other scriptures, but as I said, this is definitely part one for this psalm. Next time I want to look at some of the reasons why, in summary, that this psalm is so powerful to us, considering the fact that it's telling us about the sufferings and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ as the surety for his people.

Let's pray. Father, thank you so much that according to your goodness, by your will, because of your grace alone, you have found a way in your wisdom and your goodness to save us, a sinful people, by laying our sins upon your Son. We cannot fathom what moved you to do this, we would stand amazed in your presence at the Lord Jesus. And we're thankful, we swim in the incomprehensible, immeasurable, just the unbelievable, really, grace of God and the love of God that he would do this not just in part, but in whole, that everything required for our salvation would be fully met to the great pleasure of God in all of His holiness, and therefore we can fully trust in You by Him.

In His name we pray, Amen.