from the Psalm 22. We're preparing to come today
to our Lord's table. And as we do, We're returning
once again to this most holy psalm, Psalm 22. And our subject is the cry of
all cries. The cry of all cries. We find it here in Psalm 22,
verse 1. My God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me? Matthew and Mark tell us that
when Christ hung on the cross, from the sixth hour there was
darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the
ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, Lama
sabachthani, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Those are solemn and amazing
words. They are solemn and amazing words. But each word in that cry, each
word in this cry of our Redeemer, reveals something about the glory
of God in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. If God will give
us the ear to hear it and the heart to believe it by His Spirit,
we will see the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Each word is important. I want
to just take each word for our divisions this morning. We'll
take some of them together, but we'll just look at these words
individually. Now to begin, let's focus on
the first two words which our Savior repeated here. He said,
My God. My God. Now this was a loud cry
that Matthew and Mark said. And you know, with it being a
loud cry, that must have startled everybody involved. It must have
startled them. Because at this point, it's totally
dark all over the world. And at this point, all Christ's
enemies, and even those that believe on Christ, at this point,
they think the enemy has won the victory. So the enemy is
rejoicing. Christ's people are weeping.
And all of a sudden, out of the darkness comes this loud cry,
My God! My God! And with that cry, brethren,
He declared His unwavering faith and obedience to God the Father. Look down at verse 7. He says,
All they that see me laugh me to scorn, 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 him. But thou art he that took me
out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when
I was upon my mother's breast. And I was cast upon thee from
the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's
belly. You see, this wasn't a cry of
disobedience. This was a cry of unwavering
faith. He's saying, this is my personal
God and I trust Him. He's my God whom I've trusted. My God. For Philippians 2, 6,
turn over there with me. This is a passage that shows
us Christ was obedient even when He was on that cross. Philippians
2 and verse 6. You're familiar with it, but
I want to show you something. Philippians 2, 6. He says, who
being in the form of God, that's who was hanging there on that
cross, was the Son of God. And being in the form of God
though, He thought it not robbery, to be equal with God. He's God,
but look, He made Himself of no reputation, and He took upon
Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as
a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. See, this was an obedient cry.
Now look at verse 14. He tells you and I who believe,
He tells us to do all things without murmurings and disputings,
that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, the
sons of God, without a rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and
perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,
holding forth the word of life. And that day, brethren, on that
cross, the Word of Life, Christ the Light Himself, when He hung
there on that tree, He did all things without murmurings and
without disputings. He doesn't call on His people
to do something that He hadn't already done for us in perfect
righteousness. He did it. He did it. He did
it. And when He hung up on that cross,
He didn't give those perverse and crooked, that perverse and
crooked nation of bystanders, He didn't give them something
to blaspheme God with. No, sir. This was a faithful
and a humble cry. And this cry shows us the obedience
of the last Adam. He's not just there as an independent
person by Himself, representing Himself. He's there as a public
representative, a federal head, the last Adam, representing all
His people on that cross. When you behold the Savior here
and you read these words and He says, My God, My God, that
ought to rejoice and thrill our heart, brethren, because He's
representing every believer. He's representing those God the
Father gave Him. God's gift, by His grace, you
might have strong faith. God can give you strong faith
in Christ to trust the object of your faith, and maybe that's
so. But I'll tell you what, with suffering that's just the least
little suffering, you and I tend to murmur and dispute all the
time. You know, somebody will call
us up and say, you know, give us some direction, and we're
going to almost always dispute it. Well, I think this is how
it ought to be. Christ never did that. He never
did that. He said, I came to do, to fulfill
the Word of my Father. I came to speak His doctrine,
not my own. I came to lay down my life for
my Father and for my brethren. I came to do His will, not mine
own. He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane
and He said, not my will, but thine be done. That's who our
Savior is. The perfect Son of God, from
the cradle to His dying moment, the Lord Jesus Christ was one
uninterrupted flow of holy love and obedience. And I'm going
to tell you why that's important to me and you. That's important
to me and you because it's by the faith of Christ that we're
justified. It's by the faith of Christ that
we're justified. Turn to Galatians 2 with me just
a moment. Sunday, Wednesday night, we were watching the the live
broadcast of the Todd's Road Grace Church. And Brother Todd
and I preached from this passage. And I want to show you something.
You're familiar with this and we've seen this many times. And
this is what he preached on. But I want to show you this and
I want to show you something that stood out to me. Galatians
2.16 says, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works
of the law. That means it's not by your doing.
But by the faith of Jesus Christ. And if your Bible doesn't say
the faith of Jesus Christ, throw that sorry thing away and get
you a King James Bible. You know, when I was in college,
you always wanted to have the same textbook the professor had.
You'd be a fool to show up and try to use a different textbook
than what the professor was using. Get you a King James Bible. That's
what I'm using. Use it and you'll see these things.
But look at this. It's by the faith of Jesus Christ. It's by
His faith. By Him on that cross never wavering
but still crying, My God, My God. By the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we've believed in Jesus
Christ. Now there is our faith. We've
cast all our care on Him. Why? That we might be justified
by the faith of Jesus Christ and not by the works of the law.
For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." When
Todd wrapped up his message, I just happened to glance down
at verse 17. And I've never really noticed the very first phrase
of verse 17 backs up the fact that it's by the faith of Christ
that it's talking about. He says, but if while we seek
to be justified by Christ. Do you see that? That back, that
establishes the fact that when he says the faith of Christ,
he's talking about Christ himself, his faith, his faith. That's
what the Scripture says. For you that don't know it, turn
to Romans 5.19. I want you to see this. It's
so very important. I read this to you so many times,
but Romans 5.19. This is what this world does
not know. This religious world doesn't know this, brethren.
Romans 5.19. And I pray God makes us know
this. Look at this. By one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners. That's Adam. You didn't do anything
to make yourself a sinner. Adam did it all. By one man's
disobedience, you were made a sinner. Look at this. So by the obedience
of one, shall many be made righteous. We don't do anything to make
ourselves righteous. Christ does it. Christ makes
his people righteous. Alright, now be sure to get this,
brethren. Instead of exercising His own power as the God, as
the power of the Godhead, to just defeat His enemies in an
instant. Instead of doing that, Christ
took the shield of faith and the breastplate of righteousness
to defeat His enemies. That's what He did. That's what
he did. And so representing his people,
he allowed them to nail him to a cross. He said, no man's taking
my life. I'll lay it down to myself. And
they didn't take him. He gave himself and let them
nail him to a cross. But he never let them shake him
from trusting the Father to fulfill the Father's end of the covenant,
and to turn from His righteous obedience. He never allowed that
to happen, not once. Christ is the holy, righteous
Son of God. So, when He draws us affectionately
and He teaches us to cast all our care on Him because He's
the only righteousness of His people, He's the only holiness
of His people, He's the only redemption from the curse of
the law for His people, it's by one man's obedience to Christ
alone. And so when He brings us to believe
in Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, He teaches
us from then on, brethren, don't yield your sword, don't yield
your strength and your power and your wisdom and your intellect
and try to overcome your enemies. He says, cast all your care upon
Him because He cares for you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
through faith and take upon you the breastplate of His righteousness. His righteousness. Believe in
Him and we'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
That's what He said. So we see here now, this is the
very depths of our Lord's suffering, the darkest, deepest depths of
His suffering. And while He's suffering that,
we see the height, the climax of His holy, faithful, unwavering
obedience to God. My God! My God! Alright, now secondly, the next
word is why. Why? He says, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? This wasn't a cry of ignorance.
This is the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, all-knowing God that
we're talking about here. He knew why he was being separated. But He's declaring this so that
you and I can look into it and we can ask the question, why
was He forsaken? Why was He forsaken? Well, one,
He was forsaken because before this world was ever made, God
determined that Christ His Son, He chose His Son and determined
His Son would be given all preeminence in the salvation of His people.
His Son would. His Son would. Now, I know there's
folks running around glorying and trying to steal the glory
of God, but we're not going to have it. We're not going to have
His glory. We're not going to get His glory.
Christ is going to have all the glory. Look at Isaiah 52. Isaiah
52, and look at verse 13. This is what God said of the
Lord Jesus. This is His Son. This is the
Son of His love. Look at this. Isaiah 52, 13.
Behold My servant. My servant. Oh, my servant shall
deal prudently. And he shall be exalted and extolled
and be very high. God's going to exalt him. His
people are going to exalt him in our hearts by God's grace.
And he's going to be extolled. He's going to be bragged on and
praised, this one is. And he's going to be very high.
Every knee's going to bow and every tongue's going to confess
he's Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Now how is that going
to come to pass? Why is that going to come to
pass? Look at this, verse 14. As many as were astonished at
Thee. Just, faces just in horror to
see Him. His visage was so marred more
than any man, and His form more than the sons of men. And I think
there is more to that than we realize, a lot more than we realize. Verse 15, So shall He sprinkle
many nations. That's how He's going to save
His people. All in the nations scattered around the world. That's
how He's going to be exalted. That's how He's going to be extolled.
That's how I'm going to give Him all preeminence, God said.
And look at this. He says, And the kings shall
shut their mouths at Him. For that which had not been told
them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall
they consider. You see brethren, even more than
our salvation, even more than our salvation, we get to thinking
sometimes that the end all be all of all this is us. We had
to be saved. Oh no, far, far more important
than you and me being saved was God would give His Son all preeminence
and bring glory to His name. That was more important than
anything else. That's why Paul said in Colossians 1.18, he's
the head of the church, the firstborn, the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence
as Christ. Why did he forsake him? Why did
God forsake him? Two, it is because he entered
covenant with God to do this work all by himself. He entered
this covenant with God to do this work by himself. I said
to you this morning, that in the covenant, when you look at
the covenant, think of the covenant this way. On one side you have
God, and on one side you have God's people. Okay? But me and you sinned, so we
couldn't establish the covenant. When God made the covenant of
works with the children of Israel, that was God on one side saying,
okay, now, if you do this law, then I'll do this. and no man
ever fulfilled our side of the covenant. We broke the law. We
were sinners when he gave us that law. He gave it to us to
show us you can't keep your side of the covenant. You and me can't
do it. So he sent his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who represented his people and his son as the
servant of God in the likeness of men, he became obedient unto
the death of the cross to fulfill that covenant for his people.
to fulfill it for His people. So He coveted with God from eternity,
saying, I will do everything to establish that covenant for
My people. I will do it. And that's why
Psalm 89, look there with me, Psalm 89, 8, 19 says this. Psalm 89, 19, this is speaking
of God speaking from eternity. He says, Then thou spakest in
vision to thy Holy One. You see, there's only one, to
thy holy one, and said I've laid help upon one that is mighty. I've exalted one chosen out of
the people. You see, that's why He's left
alone on that cross. That's why the Lord was far from
hearing the words of His roaring. It's because He promised He'd
do this alone. He'd do this by Himself. And
He'd get all the glory for doing it. Isaiah 9, verse 6. You're familiar with this. I'll
just read it to you. It says, Under us a child is
born. Under us a son is given. You know the next words? The
government shall be on His shoulder. Alone. all by Himself. The government of God's kingdom,
the government of declaring God just and justified, the government
of saving His people from our sins, the government of calling
out His people and governing the nations, the government shall
be on His shoulder. And so when He went to that cross,
God left Him alone. God left Him alone. He's doing
the work by Himself for His people. Now, here's the third reason
God forsook Him. on that cross. Christ tells us
in the Psalm itself. He says there in verse 3, but
thou art holy. And he says in verse 6, but I
a worm and no man. I wouldn't say that and apply
that to my Redeemer if my Redeemer didn't apply it to Himself. I
just wouldn't do it. The word for worm is maggot. Do you know how repulsive a maggot
is to you? You know, you take a refined
lady dressed, and she's in her best, and she's refined, and
she's clean, and she smells good, and she's, you know, and she
comes across maggots. Does she want to touch them?
She won't have anything to do with them. She won't look on
them. She wants to be as far away from them as she can be.
That's just a little glimpse. God is so holy. He's so holy. He's so righteous. He will not
look upon iniquity. He will not receive sinners into
His presence. He will not do it. Period. He's holy and righteous. He's
holy and righteous. And Christ the Lord came to manifest
the righteousness of God. He came to set forth to declare
the righteousness of God. That's what He came for. He came
to declare God's just, so He came here to put Himself in place
of every one of His people so that God could exact all the
demands of the law upon Him in the room instead of His people.
so that God could make him to pay the eternal second death
that his people owed to divine justice. And then he came also
to declare God's the justifier, to declare that God was in Christ
reconciling his people to himself, that that one that hung upon
the tree is God providing himself a lamb. He came to declare the
righteousness of God that the judge of all the earth shall
do right. He came to declare that God will
by no means clear the guilty and He'll by no means charge
an innocent man with guilt. He came to declare God is just. That's what He came to declare.
Now, in order to take our place, because He's declaring the righteousness
of God and because God is just, He had to be made sin for His
people. He had to be made sin for His
people. If you go sometime, and I don't know why I didn't put
it in here for me to give to you today, but all through the
Old Testament Scripture, all through the Levitical Law, you
can find places where God is telling judges how they must
judge. And He declares this, a judge
in the earth must always, if a man is righteous, he must judge
him righteous. Count him righteous. Charge him
righteous. And if the man is guilty, he must charge that man
guilty. Now you know and I know by just
common sense in the court of law, in our land, that's exactly
how we want it. Isn't it? You don't want to judge
it. You come in there, you haven't committed a crime, you're innocent,
your lawyer's proven that you're innocent, and that judge says
you're guilty. Just because I want to charge
you is guilty. You don't want that. Nor do you
want a man who has injured your family or something, done some
horrible act, and there he stands, guilty as he can be, and everybody
knows he's guilty, and that judge can be bought off and say, well,
I'd say he's righteous. We'd say that judge is not a
just judge. He's not doing right. That's
not justice. That's not righteousness at all. Well, Christ was innocent. Christ
was holy. He's perfect. He's immaculate.
And He never ceased being holy and righteous and immaculate.
But in order for God to pour out justice upon Him, He had
to really be made sin for His people. And I know that's beyond
our concept of how that could possibly be. How could He be
made sin and still be holy within? You know, that goes beyond us.
We don't know how that could happen. But He is the God-man. He was suffering in a body and
in the soul. He is, you know, what I'm saying,
He is something we're not. And the Scripture says this plainly
and clearly, He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We've turned everyone to His
own way. That's speaking of all those that Christ represented.
All those God's going to save. And the Lord has laid on Him
the iniquity of us all. And Peter puts it about as boldly
as it can be put. Peter said, He, His own self,
bear our sins in His own body on the tree. Now, God can charge him with
sin and be judged to do it. Now, what did our sin do to us? What did our sin do to us? God
said, your iniquities have separated between you and your God and
your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear. And so when Christ took our sin
in order to pay what His people owed, in order to pay the eternal
death we owe to justice, God separated Himself and hid His
face from Christ. Do you behold righteousness? God wouldn't charge the innocent.
God made him sin. And when he was made sin, God
would by no means clear the guilty. And that's his son. That's his
own son. You say, that's pretty strict.
That's how holy and righteous God is. That's how holy and righteous
He is. And so our Savior declared in
this psalm, 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? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime. I've been hanging on to this
cross crying since it was daylight. And thou hearest not. And now
it's the night season, and it's dark over all the land, and I'm
not silent. Verse 3 says, But thou art holy.
You're holy. O thou that inhabitest the praises
of Israel. Verse 6, But I a worm and no
man. Now it would be something if
he just called himself a man. He calls himself a worm and no
man. I know it's hard for us to understand
these things, and I'll tell you what Satan wants you to do. Satan
wants you to either come to a scripture and stop short of it, stop short
of the meaning, or he wants you to take it further than it means.
And in this area right here of Christ being made sin, we don't
want to do either one of them. We don't want to stop short of
what it means, and we don't want to go further than what it means.
But I'll tell you what we want to do. I don't understand it,
I can't comprehend it, but I'm going to believe God. Believe
God. Believe God. Alright, thirdly. Let's take the rest of the words
here for time's sake. He says, My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? Why hast thou forsaken me? This word, hast, means it's done. It's past tense. It's not going
to be done again. There's priests standing everywhere
offering oftentimes the same sacrifices that can never take
away sin. But this man, by one offering,
one time, He perfected His people forever. He fulfilled the will
of God. He put away the old covenant
and established the everlasting covenant of grace. And when the
Holy Spirit reveals this in our hearts, He says, now where remission
of sin is, where sin has been purged and put away, when He
by Himself purged our sins, and so there's no more offering for
sin. Don't you ever, ever, ever disgrace
Christ by saying, I think Christ failed at what He did. So I say,
well, I would never say that. That's exactly what men say when
they say He died for all men everywhere and wants everybody
to be saved. Because Christ purged the sins of His people. Christ
finished the transgression. Christ put away sin by the sacrifice
of Himself. That's what He came to do. And
God said He shall not fail and He did not fail. Christ succeeded
at this work. Everybody for whom He died They've
been made righteous by Christ, and sooner or later, God's going
to call them and tell them about it. That's just so. And then
look here now. This word, why hast thou forsaken
me? Thou. You think about this. From
eternity, the Son of God was the delight of His Father. From
eternity. In that proverb, He speaks of
Him as being wisdom, and He said, I was ever before Him. I was
ever His delight. And then when he walked this
earth for over 30 years, he always had the presence of the Father.
He always had the praise of the Father and the refreshing and
comfort and upholding of the Father. He always had it when
he walked this earth. But for six hours now, he's been
hanging on a cross. And for the past three hours,
it's been total pitch black Darkness. Darkness everywhere over the
whole land. Now, the hiding of that sun typified
God forsaken Christ. That's what's typified by that
sun going dark and not shining at all. It typified Christ. Now, as the darkening of that
sun was new to the history of this world, so was God forsaken
His Son new. through the history of this world.
Now brethren, the eclipse of the S.U.N., that was not a temporary
fog. It wasn't just some clouds that
sort of drifted by and all of a sudden everything went dark
in the way. It was a real total shutting down of the light. And likewise brethren, It was
real when Christ blew our sins, and it was real when God withdrew
the light of His countenance from the Lord Jesus as He hung
on that cross, and Christ was really made a curse for us. It was real fury, it was real
justice, it was real wrath being poured out on the Son of God
on that cross. This was real. The pain of the
crucifixion So many people put so much emphasis on all that
and the pain of having all of his brethren desert him, the
pain of having all the enemies of heaven and hell, I mean of
hell that you could see and not see, all of them at once firing
all their fiery darts upon him, all of that, all the reproaches
and everything he bore and the pain to his body, that was nothing
in comparison to this. God the Father nor God the Holy
Spirit appeared to help our Savior. He's alone. He's absolutely alone. That's unimaginable for us to
even begin to try to comprehend. Our Savior had the Spirit without
measure. Remember that? He had the Holy Spirit without
measure. He knew the full perfect comfort
of the Father's love and of His countenance and of His grace.
He knew it. He knew it better than you and
I ever even began to know it. He knew it perfectly. So now
just imagine to be left alone in that horror and that darkness
separated from the glory of God's presence That's the second death. Scripture
speaks of the first death. That's going to be when you're
going to take your last breath on this earth and you're going
to die. The second death Scripture speaks of is when you've come
into judgment before God without a righteousness and God cast
you into outer darkness. He describes it as falling forever. You feel like you're falling
in your sleep and it wakes you up. Don't you hate that? Imagine
doing it forever. Falling forever. He calls it
a fire that's never quenched. I think the fire that's never
quenched is knowing full well, seeing perfectly everything that
Christ is, all the goodness of God, and knowing Him perfectly. And knowing you can never have
a part with Him. whatsoever. You're cut off. You're
cut off. It's to be in darkness. It's
a total darkness. Totally separated from God. Where
there's nobody but those that hate God and hate you and hate
everything and just gnash and wail on you with their teeth.
Unrestrained. And this is what it's called
in Scripture. 2 Thessalonians 1.9 says, Who
shall be punished with everlasting destruction And here's the punishment. From the presence of the Lord
and from the glory of His power. When our Savior laid down His
physical life, that was just an exclamation point, brethren.
That was just an exclamation point to say, it is really done. Death is really conquered. Because,
that's why before He did it, He said, it's finished. because
He had conquered that eternal death for His people. That's
what He was bearing while He was alive on the cross. That
death is not a dead death, that death is a living death. That's
what He was suffering on that cross for His people. But we
can't stop there. We just can't stop there. Go
down to verse 22. The Lord said this now, verse
22, Psalm 22, 22. I will declare thy name unto
my brethren in the midst of the congregation. Will I praise thee? What does that mean? Let me show
you what that means. We got time. Hebrews 2. Turn to Hebrews 2.
I'll show you what that means. He says here in verse 11, both
he that sanctifyeth, that's Christ, and they who are sanctified,
that's those he died for, they're all of one. They're one. He says, for which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, here's our verse, I will
declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while
I sing praise unto thee. Christ Jesus is raised from the
dead and He's singing praises right now in the midst of the
church that He's gathered together. As the gospel's going forth,
He's singing the praises of the Father. And you know what He's
singing? Here's what He's singing. Here's what He's declaring in
the hearts of His people. Verse 23. Ye that fear the Lord, praise
Him. Psalm 22, 23. Ye that fear the
Lord, praise Him, and all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify Him,
and fear Him, all ye the seed of Israel. For 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. When He cried this cry, God the
Father heard Him. Hebrews says, He heard in that
He feared. He reverenced God. He believed
God. Even while that darkness is covering him and he's separated
from God, he never wavered once from believing the Father. Bearing
the sin of his people, bearing the curse of his people, bearing
the wrath of God, he never ceased trusting, My Father shall hear
me and raise me like He promised me. He never turned from that. He never turned from that. And
now he's heard. God raised him and he sat down
at the right hand of the majesty on high. When he had by himself
purged our sin, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty
on high. And now everybody that is in
him, all his people that God put in him, have full reconciliation
with God. We've been made righteous before
God. We've been redeemed from the
curse of the law. We're holy and righteous in Christ.
We are accepted in the Beloved. And since Christ was forsaken,
since Christ was forsaken of the Father in place of His people,
this is what He said. He satisfied justice. He purged
our sins. And this is what He says. I will
never leave you or forsake you. I'll never do it. Why? Because that same righteousness
that demanded he be made sin, that same righteousness that
demanded he be made a curse and charged once he was made sin,
that same righteousness that demanded he must die, now demands
that because he did that, his people must never be forsaken. One time this man said, he said,
you know, If you don't end up in heaven,
he said, what are you going to do if after all these things,
talking to a fellow, he said, what if after all this you've
believed in and trust in and you get to glory and none of
it's true and you're going to lose a lot, aren't you? And that
man said, well, yeah, I will. He said, but God's going to lose
a whole lot more than I will. Man stood back and said, that's
blasphemy. No, it's not blasphemy. God's
righteousness, He's redeemed His people. His righteousness
has made His people righteous. And now His righteousness demands
each and every one be saved. And if they're not saved, God
loses more than I lose, brethren. He loses that holy, glorious,
righteous name. That'll never happen. That'll
never happen. That'll never happen. God was
far from helping Christ, and so He tread the winepress alone,
and of the people there was none to help Him. And now that He's
pleased the Father, He says to you, believer, I bring near my
righteousness, and it shall not be far off. I bring near my righteousness,
and it shall not be far off. Christ is singing these praises
to us now. And you know what else He's doing?
He's paying His vows. That first thing, he said, I'll
sing praises, that's him as the prophet. And then he says there,
I'll pay my vows, that's a high priest. He's paid all we owed
and now he's making intercession to God for us continually. He's
continually doing that which he promised the Father he would
do. And then he says this, He says that he ruled all his people
in all the nations as the king. And so he promises his people
this, verse 30. He's the prophet, priest, and
king. So verse 30, he says, A seed shall serve him, and it shall
be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come,
and they shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born,
that he hath done this by his grace. I'm one of those seeds.
I'm His seed. By His grace, you who believe
are His seed. By His grace, He's gathered us here this morning
to declare His righteousness. That's what we're all doing together
right here. Declaring His righteousness. Is there anybody here among that
people that He says shall be born of His Spirit by His grace? He says this is what shall. This
is the result of Him dying on that tree. He said, now there's
going to be a people that's going to praise Me. and declare my
righteousness. And that's what I've been trying
to do to you this whole hour. And they're gonna, as they do
it, He says, there's gonna be a seed that's gonna be born again.
And He says this. Here's our message. This is our
message. He hath done this. You know what it is? You know
what that means? It's the exact same word He said when He cried
from the cross and said, It is finished. It is finished. That's our salvation. Oh, what
a faithful cry. Amen. Alright, Brother Robert.