Brethren, Psalm 18 is going to
be our text for tonight. I told Brother Scott to begin
reading in verse 5, I meant verse 4, but you got the gist of it. Last time we were in this psalm
and we saw that Psalm 18 are prophetic words. These words
were penned by David, but the Holy Spirit is using David here
to give us the words that were spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ.
And these words were spoken by Christ to the Lord, to God Jehovah,
as He served the Lord in the earth. And the occasion for these
words were when the Lord God delivered Christ from His enemies
on the cross when He had accomplished the work He was sent to do. Now
the requirement, the necessity to fulfill the righteousness
of God for all of God's elect people and to declare God just
and the justifier was really just one work, but it had two
branches to it really. One, in order to justify God's
people from our sins, Christ had to be made sin. and had to
undergo the justice of God and put away that sin. He had to
die the death that his people owed to divine justice. And two,
as Christ accomplished that work, that really is the fulfillment
of the positive side of the law. That is loving God and your neighbor
as yourself. And that's what Christ did on
the cross. He fulfilled all righteousness. Now in order for him to do this,
Christ is God. He is God the Son. In order for
Him to accomplish this, He had to come down and He had to humble
Himself and become a servant to God. And as the servant of
God, to be obedient to God and to trust God, to cast all His
care upon God as His people, in the place of His people, as
the representative of His people, to faithfully walk before God,
faithfully trust God, faithfully cast all His care upon God. And
this he did. And he had to do this even unto
the death of the cross. Now, this humility, this humility
of Christ and this total dependence upon the Lord, even upon the
death of the cross, this is what the Apostle Paul, this is how
he wanted to know Christ more. Remember he said in Philippians,
he said that I might know him and the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his sufferings. being made conformable unto his
death. Now, is there anybody here that
wants to know the fellowship of Christ's sufferings? To be
made conformable unto death, to be made to entirely cast all
your care upon Christ, to totally trust Christ, to totally depend
upon Him, to deliver us from our sin, and from every enemy,
from every trial, all the way as we go through this life, and
to deliver us into glory. I want to know the fellowship
of His suffering. I want to be made conformable
unto His death. I want to be made like Christ,
like we'll see here, one that depended entirely upon Him that
could deliver Him. I want to be made to depend entirely
upon Christ. To do that, we're going to have
to suffer. To do that, we're going to have to suffer with
Christ. I've titled this, Suffering with Christ. And what we're going
to see here, Christ is using Himself and the things that He
suffered to exemplify for us the faithfulness of God and the
faithfulness of God to teach you and I who believe through
our suffering. Now, I'm going to preach Christ
to you here. I'm going to show you how Christ redeemed us from
our sins. And in the process, I want to
show you how faithful God is. And I want you to see here that
this God is Christ. He's Christ who's raised now.
And this is the one who's going to deliver us. Now, the first
thing we see is that we must suffer. We must suffer. Notice
how greatly Christ suffered here. He said in verse 4, The sorrows
of death come past me. The bonds of death, the cords
of death wrapped me about. They surrounded me. Now you think
about this. This is Christ who is life. Christ who is life. And yet Christ
who is life, like that high priest, he went and he presented a spotless
lamb. And he presented that spotless
lamb to be made sin for a particular people, for Israel. and for that
lamb to be slain. Well, Christ, in the Garden of
Gethsemane, He didn't present a spotless lamb. He presented
Himself. He is the spotless lamb. And
He presented Himself to be made sin for His people, to die the
just for the unjust. And He, in the Garden of Gethsemane,
began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy. The cords of death
were compassing Him about. He began, it says, He said, My
soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. The core, the sorrows
of death were compassing Him about. Being in an agony, He
prayed more earnestly and His sweat was, as it were, great
drops of blood falling down to the ground. We can't imagine
what it would be like for this one who is life, who knew no
sin, to be surrounded with the sorrows of death? To be compassed
about with the sorrows of death? Sin brings forth death. And sin
brings forth all kinds of deaths. And everything Christ suffered
was a death of sorts. He was continually suffering
deaths as He walked this earth. Everything He endured on the
cross was a death. Sorrows of total injustice in
that man-made kangaroo court that he had to endure, that he
went through. That was just a mockery of justice. Sorrow of death. That was the
result of death. That's the result of sin and
death, is what that was. Sorrows of sinners who were dead
in sins, who were too blind in their sins to know that while
they're crucifying Christ, Christ was actually dying for some of
them. He was dying for some of them, putting away their sin.
That's a sorrow of death. To bear the sins of His people
and to bear the justice of Holy God, that's a sorrow of death.
And that's what He's speaking about here. He suffered on that
cross so He cried, this is what He said in Psalm 22 in verse
14, I am poured out like water. Listen to this how there's just
a drying up, just a gradual drying up. You know, dry dirt is death. God took us from dirt and formed
a body and He breathed life and there's life. But without life,
it's just dry dirt. Listen to this drying up. He
said, I'm poured out like water. He said, all my bones are out
of joint. He said, my heart's like wax.
It's melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried
up like a pot shirt, he said. He said, and my tongue cleaveth
to my jaws. And here's the worst sorrow of
death. He said, thou, he is God, thou, has brought me into the
dust of death. God brought him there. You know
nothing God does is by accident. Nothing. And he has the power
to stop evil. He has the power to permit evil.
He has the power to accomplish his will in this earth and nobody
can stop him. Nobody can question what he's
doing. And that's what took place on Calvary's tree. Everybody
that was gathered together was gathered together to do whatsoever
God determined beforehand to be done. And whatever God has
determined beforehand to be done, that's what shall be done. So
when we suffer, it's not by accident, it's by God. And He's doing this. But the Hebrew word here for
sorrow means the travail of a woman who's in travail delivering a
child. And that's a good word for it
because that's what Christ accomplished on the cross by the travail of
His soul. He brought forth children. He redeemed us from the curse
of the law. And He shall see the travail of His soul. He shall
see all His children that He travailed and sold for brought
to life in faith in Christ. And He'll be satisfied because
this is what the Father promised to the Son. Then it says here
in verse 4, it says, And the floods of ungodly men made me
afraid. Can Christ be made afraid? He's
God. But you got to understand right
here, He's taken our nature and He is suffering for His people.
And He, the Scripture says, we have not a high priest which
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmity. He was in all
points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Yes, Christ
could be made afraid. And the word floods here signify
the multitudes of ungodly men. The floods of ungodly men. He
said in Psalm 22, dogs have come past me. The infernal dogs of
hell come past him. That kennel of hell, they come
past him. And wicked men come past him.
The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my
hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones. They'd
look and stare upon me. You know, Christ promises us
who believe that we're going to suffer. We are going to suffer. He said the servant's not above
his Lord. If they've persecuted me, they will persecute you.
But He's told us that. But you know, at most, we generally
just suffer at the hands of one or two. That's about it. Maybe three. But Christ had a
host of ungodly men. A host of ungodly men suffering. Herod and Pontius Pilate. Here
are two kings. Imagine if you had kings of governments
that turned on you. He was suffered at the hands
of the host of Roman soldiers. Imagine if a whole army doing
the bidding of kings that are against you. If a whole army
compassed you about. And then all men, Jews and Gentiles,
that takes in every kind of man there is, all men were against
him. Unseen powers and principalities
and rulers of the darkness, it was an entire company of wicked
men and wicked spirits. And also this word floods here
signifies the variety of sufferings he endured at the hands of the
ungodly. When Christ tells us we're going to suffer, in our
day, usually, all they're going to do is gnash upon us with their
teeth. You've seen that. You've seen men bite their teeth,
grit their teeth when they're rejecting you and rejecting your
God and rejecting your Gospel. That's about all we encounter.
But they not only gnashed upon Christ, they spit upon Him. And they buffeted Him with their
fists, right back and just punched Him. and they scourged him with
a whip of bones, whipped him with a whip made of bones, and
they snatched his hair out by the handfuls. And this floods
of ungodly men signifies the floods of our sins which Christ
bore for us who are ungodly rebels for whom He died. All God's elect
died in Adam, and we're sinners. We were ungodly wretches that
He came to save. And He's bearing the flood of
our sin upon Him. John Gill wrote this. He said,
That's a translation of the Bible. He said, it renders the word,
the torrents of iniquity troubled me. That's how it's translated.
The torrents of iniquity troubled me. And Gil said, which was true
of Christ when all the sins of His people came flowing in upon
Him like mighty torrents from all quarters. When God laid on
Him the iniquity of them all and He was made sin for them.
Christ said in Psalm 69, Save me, O God, for the waters are
come in unto my soul. The floods. He said, I sink in
deep mire where there's no standing. I've come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. God's just. And everything He's
doing on Calvary's tree is just. And He's doing it to declare
His righteousness. And here, this one who knew no
sin was made sin for us so that God could justly condemn him
in our room instead, or else God's unjust to do it. And God's
doing everything here justly for His people. And these floods
also signify the just wrath of God which Christ bore when He
stood as our substitute. Look at Psalm 88, look at verse
6. He said this in verse 6, He said,
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 waves. And that brings
us to this third thing in our text. Look back there at Psalm
18 verse 5. It says, The sorrows of hell come past me now. Men
want to talk about Christ going to some local place called hell.
And what that is, is men not realizing what took place on
Calvary's tree. If you look at Calvary's tree,
you will see hell. Hell is God forsaking you. Hell is God turning His back
on you. Hell is God pouring out His wrath upon you. That's hell. And that's what His people deserved.
He described it as their worm dieth not, the fire is not quenched. Hell will be a place where you
can see God, you know God, you know Him fully. Christ knew,
He knew the Father fully. And yet at the same time, He
separated from Him. And all hell is gnashing upon
Him. unseen and seen. God has unleashed
all men to do as they will, the devil to do as he will, all evil
spirits to do as they will. And he's suffering this, and
God, and he knows God fully, and he sees God, he knows God
can help him, he knows all, and yet he's separated from that
help. On the cross, this is what Christ
bore, the sorrows of hell. The sorrows of hell. And He said
then in verse 5, the snares of death prevented Me. The snares
of death prevented Me. They came before Him, all the
snares of death, all the traps of death, all the djinns and
snares of death, they came before Him to block Him from God. They came before Him to block
him from God, to create a gulf between him and God, to block
him from being faithful to God, to try to prevent him from being
faithful to God. All of this happened while He's
on the cross. Now, according to these four things that He
stated here, there are four metaphors here to describe His suffering.
Here's what they are. He was bound like a male factor
for execution. He said the sorrows of death,
the bonds of death. He was flooded like a shipwrecked
mariner, flooded by the seas of divine justice. He was surrounded
and bathed by dogs of the infernal kennel like a hunted animal.
and he was captured in the net like a trembling bird. That's
what these four metaphors symbolize here, that he suffered. Now we
see why we're told in Hebrews, consider him. When you come into
suffering and you suffer, consider him that endured such contradiction
of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your
mind. striving against sin, because
none of us have resisted unto blood. None of us have resisted
like Christ resisted. Our affliction is light. It's
light. It's hard to us, but it's really
light. In comparison to what Christ
suffered, it's light affliction, and it endures for a moment.
He suffered in three hours an eternity of hell for His people. And because He's eternal God,
He's satisfied He satisfied God and He quenched the flames of
hell for His people. He did that on the cross. Now
next, look here, we see our strength and our hope. Here's our strength
and our hope. When we come into suffering,
God hears Christ, our mediator. Look here now in verse 6. Christ
says, In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried unto
my God. He heard my voice out of His
temple, and my cry came before Him even into His ears." Here
is Christ Jesus, the righteousness of His people. Here He is, He's
bearing all of this we just talked about. All of this evil, all
of these sorrows, all of this binding and wounding and soul
suffering, all being separated from God. and every host of hell
trying to prevent him from being faithful to God and crying out
to God. And yet in the midst of it all,
he not only is the sin bearer, putting away the sins of his
people so that we can be just, he's fulfilling the law for us.
And he must, in perfect faithfulness, depend entirely upon God. He
must never waver from trusting God. He must never waver from
looking only to God the entire time he suffers. And that's what
he did. That's what he did. And here's
our assurance of God's faithfulness to us in Christ. This is our
assurance of His faithfulness to us who believe on Christ.
This is our assurance that Christ is our wisdom, our righteousness,
our sanctification, and our redemption. Right here. He heard my voice
out of His temple. And my cry came before Him even
into His ears. In that day that Christ cried,
it's finished. Here's what happened. He heard
Him and here's proof that He heard Him. Here's what God did.
When Christ said it's finished and He had accomplished the work
that God sent Him to do, here's what God did. He removed the
foundations that could be removed. That's what He did. Verse 7 says,
Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the hills
moved and were shaken because He was wroth. The earth literally
shook that day. When Christ Christ is finished,
the mountains and the rocks quaked. The graves opened. That happened
when he died. But a great deal more was happening.
There were foundations that were laid by God that were not permanent,
that could be removed. Christ took away the first that
He may establish the second. Christ on that day when He said
it's finished, that veil ran in two in the temple, and they
looked in that temple and there was no ark in that temple, there
was no sign of glory in that temple. God declared that whole
Mosaic Law was done away with. It was finished. It was accomplished
by Christ because He's the end of the law. Here's the one for
whom it was all made. Here's the one for whom it all
pictured. Here's the one for which the law is a schoolmaster
to bring us unto. Christ Jesus the Lord. Here He
is. And He established the second.
He established the everlasting covenant of grace for His people.
The perfect law of liberty for His people. And God shook and
He broke up the civil political Israel with all its pictures
and types. He left their house desolate. It was left desolate. Seventy years later, He destroyed
it. But Paul said in Hebrews 8, that which is dead is decaying
and is ready to vanish away. He had to bring his people out
from it and it took a little while. He brought them out from
it though. But that day was the day he signified it's over with.
It's over with. But you know what remained that
can't be shaken, that's established and will never be moved? All
God's elect, His spiritual Israel. That's the kingdom that can never
be moved. It was established that day.
And then something else God did. God raised His Shekinah glory.
Christ Jesus, the glory of God, He raised His Shekinah glory
to His secret place, to His right hand, the right hand of the Father.
Look at Psalm 1811. It says, He made darkness His
secret place. You can't see Christ now, and
I can't see Him now, except through faith, because He raised Him
from the dead. And He did something else. He
left the house of His enemies desolate, and He scattered His
enemies. Look at verse 14. Yea, He sent
out His arrows and scattered them, and He shot out lightnings
and discomforted them. And then God made known something
else. He made known His true foundations
in that day. He made known by raising Christ
from the dead that Christ is the foundation of His church.
And He began sending forth His apostles. Ephesians 2 says, We're
founded upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets,
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. He began to
send them forth and He began to send forth the true gospel
of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the foundation on which we are
built. Look at verse 15. This is what it said. Then the
channels of waters were seen. What happens when you can see
the channels of water? One time they drained a lake
I used to fish on and they drained it dry. And I went out there
and looked and there was channels all in that lake. I couldn't
see them until the water was dried up. I saw little channels
coming out of those channels where the catfish would travel.
And they'd come out and they led right to trees where they'd
go up and down those trees and eat fish off of them all night
long. channels. But I couldn't see any of those
channels until the waters were dried up. But in that day Christ
died, God dried up the waters. Just like at the Red Sea when
He dried up the waters and His people went across on dry ground.
That day Christ dried up the waters. He dried up the water
of sin. He dried up the divine justice of God against His people
so that we can go into heaven on dry ground in Christ Jesus. And not only that, but He showed
us then the foundations of the world were discovered at thy
rebuke. Oh Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.
When he broke down that veil and rent that veil in two and
showed that there was no... God wasn't in the worship of
Israel. And when he did that and then
he sent forth his apostles and his prophets and he began to
call people on the day of Pentecost, he showed that these are my foundations. These are the foundations I've
laid right here. Not that foundation, this foundation. This foundation. And God did
all this when He raised Christ from the grave. When He set Him
at His own right hand from all His suffering on His throne of
glory. Look at verse 16. He sent from above. He took me. He drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them which hated
me. For they were too strong for me. Not too strong to conquer.
Not too strong to conquer. But it shows that Christ depended
upon God to deliver Him. That's what it's showing. Look
here at verse 18. They prevented me in the day of my calamity.
They tried to prevent Christ from being faithful to God. They
tried to keep His Word from coming into God. But look at this. But
the Lord was my stay. The Lord was my stay. He brought
me forth also into a large place. He delivered me because He delighted
in me. And if you read on there, He
says, The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, according
to the cleanness of my hands, as He reconsents me." Who can
that be said about but Christ? But Christ. It can be said about
a believer who believes on Christ for Christ's sake. But this can
be said of Christ Himself. Christ Himself. Now turn to Hebrews
12. I want you to see this. The Hebrew
writer put all this this way over in Hebrews 12. Hold your place there. We're
going to come back to Hebrews 5 in just a minute. But I want
you to read this. Hebrews 12. Now look here in
verse 26. He says, "...whose voice then
shook the earth." Let's begin reading in verse 25. See that
you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not who refused
him that spake on earth. Talking about Christ. Much more
shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from
heaven. That's where he's speaking from now. Now look at this. Whose
voice then shook the earth. But now he hath promised saying
yet once more I shake not the earth only but also heaven. There's
coming a day. He shook the earth, he busted
up all those foundations of the old covenant, of the old mosaic. way of worship, of all of that.
He busted all the political Israel and established a new covenant,
established the law for his people, and established his people in
righteousness. And he established the gospel and sent forth the
gospel in that day. But there's coming a day when
he's going to destroy the heavens and the earth. He's going to
shake it again. But he's going to destroy everything that can
be destroyed. But now watch this. And this
word yet once more signifies the removing of those things
that are shaken as of things that are made, that those things
which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." Because of what
Christ accomplished when He He's called the last elect child in.
He's going to destroy the heavens and the earth. 2 Peter 3 says
they're going to melt with a fervent heat. And He's going to shake
everything. Everything that appears so solid
and so founded and so immovable, it's going to be shaken. It's
going to be no more. But there's something that can't
be shaken. That's the Christ and His kingdom. It can't be
shaken. He's established it in righteousness. And it can't be
moved. And His people... If you go on and read Hebrews
12 there, He's talking about we've come to heavenly Jerusalem.
We've come to Mount Zion. We've come to the true church
of God now. And Jerusalem which is above
is free. Jerusalem which is below is in bondage with the children.
Jerusalem which is above is free. It can't be shaken. It can't
be moved. Let's try to learn a few things from what we've
seen here. First of all, we see here Christ Jesus is the only
one who could pray to God without a mediator between Him and God
and God heard Him. God heard Him and God answered
Him. He's the only man that ever walked this earth that could
pray to God and God hear Him without a mediator. In Hebrews
5, I want you to look there with me, Hebrews 5. Verse 7, he says, In the days
of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications
with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save
him from death, he was heard in that he feared. He reverenced
God. He was faithful to God. Though
he were a son, here's God the Son. This is the Son of God.
Yet, learned he obedience. He experienced obedience for
his people. He perfected obedience for his
people by the things which he suffered. By the things which
he suffered. Do we not expect to suffer? Here's
the Son of God and yet he suffered to redeem his people. We're going
to have to suffer, brethren. And by that, We're going to learn
obedience. We're going to learn obedience
by the things we suffer. Look, and being made perfect,
perfecting obedience for His people, being fully consecrated,
the author and finisher of faith, He became the author of eternal
salvation to all them that obey Him. What does that mean? It
means He accomplished the Father's will on the cross. It means when
He laid down His life, He put away the sin of a particular
people. It means when He laid down His
life on that cross, He brought in an everlasting righteousness
for His people. He fulfilled the law for His
people. And doing so, He declared God
just and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. Christ
did this. Now, secondly, understand this. We're sinners. We can't call
on God without a mediator. We can't pray to God without
a mediator. We can't come to God without a mediator. We're
sinners. We need a mediator to represent us to God. We need
someone who's righteous to make us righteous and present us to
God. We need somebody who's holy to
make us holy and present us to God. Christ is all for all those
for whom He died. He is all for everybody for whom
He died. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only faithful one who intercedes to God for His people. He prays
the Father. He said this, I'll pray the Father,
and the Father will send the Comforter, and He will guide
you into all truth. Christ is the one whose glory
it is to send forth His preachers, to call out His people, to pray
the Spirit, and the Spirit be sent forth by the Father to quicken
His people. And this glory is Christ, and
He's accomplishing this because God hears Christ. and He delivers
His people for the sake of His Son, for the sake of Christ,
because He's righteousness. If Christ was heard, then surely,
sinner, He'll hear you if you come to God in Christ. If you
come to God through faith in Christ, surely He'll hear you.
This is what the Scripture says. I'm the way, the truth, and the
life. That's what Christ said. No man
cometh to the Father but by Me. He's the door. There's no coming
to God except through faith in Christ. One reason Christ cried
and was heard and delivered and recorded it for us in the Scripture
is to teach His people that God hears Him and God delivered Him
to let us know He's interceding for His people. So we know God's
faithful and God will hear Christ. And all who come in Christ, God
will hear. That's what He's teaching. You
know, He told us that very thing when He raised Lazarus from the
dead. Look over at John 11. Here at John 11. You hang with
me now. I'm going to tell you something
here about why we have to suffer in just a minute. But look at
this. I want you to see something. John 11, verse 41. He was staring
at Lazarus' tomb. And he prayed. And it says this,
verse 41. Then they took away the stone
from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up
his eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me.
Now was there a point that he, did he have to say that to God?
Look at this. I knew that thou hearest me always,
but because of the people which stand by, I said it that they
may believe that thou hast sent me. You see, that was a great
example that day when he stood there with Lazarus. I will tell
you a better example than that is what we see in our text on
the cross. When all the world and all hell
was turned against Him and God was turned against Him, He cried
unto the Father in faithfulness to the Father and the Father
heard Him. He heard Him. He heard Him. God has showed
you, if He showed you something of your sin, then you see something
about what you are. And when you begin to see something
of your sin, you know what our first thought is? We can't come
to God. When He shows us something of
His holiness, something of our sin, our first thought is, I
can't come to God. He won't accept me. Are you afraid
that God won't hear you because of your sin? You notice here
that there was no blockade by Satan, not even the host of wickedness
that could stop Christ's prayer from coming into God the Father.
They tried. They tried, ever evil and wickedness
there was, tried to prevent His Word coming in to God the Father.
They couldn't stop it. They couldn't stop it. And that's
the case for every sinner that casts our care upon Christ. You
can't stop Christ from entering in. If you mourn over your sin,
and you hate your sin, and you desire, you have a need, you
see you have a need, you desire to call on Christ and to do it
in faith, I can assure you this, you're not doing that by yourself.
You didn't do that because you just mustered up some will in
you to do it. Because you don't have a will to do it. If you're
doing that and you have a heart that you're feeling things, knowing
things, experiencing things you've never experienced before, I can
guarantee you this, God's given you life. He's given you life. He's given you faith. And He's
drawing you. A man don't see his sin. A man
don't abhor his sin until God's made him alive. And if He's done
that, He's drawn you. And if He's drawn you in faith,
it's because God chose you from before the foundation of the
world, and Christ redeemed you, and Christ has sent the Word
to you, and now He's quickened you by that Word, and He's drawn
you by that Word. That's so. And if that's the
case, this is the case too. Romans 8.34 says, Who is He that
condemneth? It's Christ at night. Yea, rather,
that's risen again. who is at the right hand of God
and makes every lives to make intercession for us. If you in
your heart have a hatred of your sin now and a desire to come
to God, it is because Christ Jesus Himself at the right hand
of the Father has done everything necessary to give you that heart
and to draw you to the Father. And He is going to do so by making
you cast all your care on Christ. You are not going to get away.
I'm happy to say that and I'm thankful it's so. If that's true
and God's working it, you ain't going to get away. You can run
and try, but you're not going to get away. And He's going to
make you glad you can't get away for it's over with. The same is true for every believer. We get this way. We get to thinking
that He won't hear us because of our sin, don't we? He said,
my little children, these things write unto you that you sin not,
but if any man sin, You think that's an if, there or when?
Is there a possibility we're not going to sin? When any man
sins, we have an advocate with the Father. An advocate with
the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous and
He is the propitiation for our sins. He's satisfaction for our
sins. He's the mercy seat for our sins.
He's atonement for our sins. And not fires only, but for His
people scattered all over this globe. It doesn't matter who
you are. It doesn't matter when you read
in Timothy and he says God will have all men to be saved. He's
not talking about all men without exception. He's saying all kinds
of men. All kinds of men. Rich, poor, male, female, bond-free,
pretty and ugly. All of them. He's going to save
every one of them. Because He is God and He has redeemed them
and He is going to call them to Himself. Now fourthly, why
must we be brought to suffer? Why must we even be brought to
suffer? Why is it that God first reveals to us our sin and brings
us into this suffering that we have to go through when we start
to see our sin and to mourn our sin? Why is it that He makes
us to suffer the rejection of our loved ones who reproach us
and reproach Christ and reject us and reject Christ? Why do
we have to suffer that? Why is it that a believer has to suffer
in great trials throughout all our life? Why didn't He just
take us away from the evil? Why did He leave us in it? Why
did He? Notice here in verse 6. Christ
called and then He cried. Look here at verse 6. In my distress
I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God. You know, in the
Garden of Gethsemane it says He went forth and He prayed to
the Father. And then it says a little bit later, He went forth
and He prayed more earnestly. And I read that and I think,
how could there be any degrees of praying with Christ? He's
perfect. Everything He did is perfect.
I don't understand that. This I do know. I know that even
while He was suffering, He was teaching His people how to come
to Him, how to come to God in Him. He first called, then He
cried. And then notice here too, He
first invoked God's name under the name Lord, Jehovah. And then
He advances to a more familiar name, My God. My God. God brings us to the end of our
self through these trials. He just brings us to... We think
we're down, and He brings us further down. And we think we're
down, and He brings us further down. And He keeps bringing us
until He brings us to the end of our self. And when He brings
us to the end of ourself, our call goes from a call to a cry. That's why we suffer. And we
go from calling Him the Lord, God, and saying, I believe in
God. We go from saying, I know the
doctrine of election. I know the doctrine of predestination.
I know the doctrine of particular redemption. I know the doctrine
of irresistible grace. We go from all that to crying.
My God. My God. My God who elected me. My God
who predestinated me. My God who redeemed me. My God
who called me irresistibly. My God. That's why the trial
is needful. That's why the trial is needful.
He increases our faith by exercise, by practical instruction in all
His acts of providence. to make us entirely dependent
upon Christ alone. I'll give you an example. You
hear me preach and you hear God, Christ, declare in the scriptures
that the carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And then God brings you
face to face with it. And you experience it. And you
suffer it. And you find out this is true. And what does it make you see?
It makes you see what you are. In the face of that one gnashing
upon you. It makes you see what God's delivered
you from. It makes you see what He's still
delivering you from. And it makes you to cry upon
to Him to deliver you and to keep delivering you and to continue
to deliver you. You see, the suffering is to
draw us to Christ. And He shows us these things
in Scripture. Look at Hebrews 4. He shows us His suffering
in Scripture. to show us God's faithful, to
hear Him. He shows us this in Scripture
to show that He's put away our sin, that He's redeemed His people
from all iniquity. But He shows us this in Scripture
to teach us this right here too. Look, Hebrews 4.15, We have not
an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without
sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. That's the purpose of the trial.
That's the purpose of the first, from the moment he makes you
to see your sin and hear what the law says about you, that
you're dead and trespassing sin. And in every trial from then
on in the believer, at the end of the trial is to bring us to
His throne of grace. This whole life is a trial. Everything
in it is a trial. And the last trial we are going
to face is death. And you know what is going to
come after that? When this whole trial is over with, His people
come into His throne of grace. And right now, every trial He
brings us into is to bring us to His throne of grace, to cast
all our care on Him. Now, when God used the trial
to bring His child to cry and to cast our care upon Him, What
does He do? What does He do for us? Well,
then Christ does in a small measure what we saw here that God did
when Christ finished the work. He does in a small measure in
our hearts what He did here. He takes away the first and He
establishes the second. He makes us to see we truly are
redeemed from the curse of the law. We truly are brought out
from under the bondage of the law in every way. The law is
not our motivator. The law is not our restrainer
in any way. We're freed from the law by Christ.
And He makes us to know that by establishing in our hearts
the second, the perfect law of liberty. The law of love and
the law of faith. He establishes that in our hearts
because how? How? Because we felt cast out. We felt rejected. We felt that
our dearest loved ones hated us and wanted nothing to do with
God and us and anything about us. But we got a friend that
sticks closer than a brother in spite of us. That's how He
teaches you that. And we need to be taught that.
I want to be taught that. And He turns us from the fleshly
to the spiritual. Just like He said, just like
He broke up the foundations and proved that Israel was done,
and now He's established His heavenly Jerusalem. He turns
us from things below. And He teaches you in your heart,
if you're dead with Christ, turn then from these earthly, foolish,
fading, fleeing things, and cast all your care upon Him who's
seated at the right hand of God. Because your life is hid in Christ. That's where your life is. Right
there with God. That's where your life is. And
He scatters our enemies. Just like He sent forth the arrows
and He scattered Christ's enemies and raised Him from the dead
for our benefit. He scatters our enemies time and time again. They're conquered. They're conquered. But He lets them get just close
enough and then He just scatters them from us. And He does it
to show us He's the one ruling things. He's the one that's conquered
every enemy by His blood. He's the one that's put away
our sin and established righteousness and delivered us from the justice
of the law. And He's delivering us from every lesser enemy. And
they're all lesser enemies. Even Satan himself is a lesser
enemy than the law of God. And He does this and He makes
us behold His Shekinah glory in His secret place. He makes
us to behold Christ in faith. Really, every now and then we
get to see Him through faith. Not physically, but through faith
every now and then. Do you find that so? You see
Him, you worship Him, you want to serve Him, but every now and
then you get to really see Him. You do get to see Him, that Shekinah
glory. And He makes us know that His
true foundation, He's Christ, our foundation. He makes us to
delight in the gospel He's been preaching to us, to know that's
our sheer foundation. And He makes us delight in those
who preach the gospel to us because they told us the truth. They
told us the truth. The channels of waters are seen
and the foundations of the world are discovered at His rebuke.
He shows us this whole world is held in store by Christ. And
it's just as He held it in store in Noah's day until the last
one was called in the ark. Peter said, by the same word
is this world held in store. Because He's not willing that
any of His people perish. He's going to call them all.
That's what the foundation of this world is founded on. When
it says that He loved us from the foundation of the world,
that means when He chose His people in Christ and Christ entered
into covenant with the Father, that's when the world was founded.
That's the foundation of the world. God's covenant. His covenant. And then when He's done this
and delivered us again, our enemies might be raging all around us.
They might still be there. He don't ever remove all the
enemies. And to do that, He's going to
take us out of this earth. But they're still there, but
yet we've got peaceful God in our heart. And we see Him and
we delight in His Gospel and we delight in His Word. And then,
you know what we do? This is the other reason He causes
us to suffer. Because then this is what we
say. Look at verse 16. He sent from above. Psalm 18,
16. This is our Word now. He sent
from above. He took me. He drew me out of
many waters. He delivered me from my strong
enemy, and from them which hated me, for they were too strong
for me. They prevented me in the day
of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth
also into a large place. He delivered me because He delighted
in me. How? For Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. That's why
we suffer, brethren. Now that's good, isn't it? Don't
you want to suffer with Christ? I want to know the fellowship
of His suffering and be made conformable unto His death. Because
all good comes out of it. He shuts us up to Christ. Amen.