Well, let us turn to God's Word. We read in Psalm 22. I'm sure it's a portion of Holy
Scripture that's not unfamiliar to any of you. And we have in
previous times looked at parts of the Psalm. And I want us to
turn this evening to the words that we find towards the end.
in the closing part of verse 29. Psalm 22, I'll read the whole
of verse 29. All they that be fat upon earth
shall eat and worship, all they that go down to the dust shall
bow before him, and none can keep alive his own soul. So the words that I really want
to take as a text is that final clause, and none can keep alive
his own soul. Here in Psalm 22 and the end
of verse 29. We know that this is evidently
a Messianic Psalm. It speaks quite clearly as a
word of prophecy concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a Psalm
of David, but the greater Son of David is here in the psalm. The opening words, of course,
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so
far from helping me? And from the words of my roaring,
those words, certainly the first clause, are to be found in the
Gospels, both in Matthew 27, 46, but also in Mark 15, 34. So we discover right at the outset
of the psalm that we're reading here of the Lord Jesus. And as in the opening words,
so also in the last words of this psalm. The final clause
there, the end of verse 31, that He hath done this and this in italics as we see
it in our authorized version indicative that that word has
been introduced in the translation it literally says that he hath
done and it might well have been rendered it is finished it is
finished and of course those words also appear in the Gospel,
in John's account of the crucifixion, there in chapter 19 and verse
30. That's tremendous cry reeling
as the Lord comes to the end of His work. He had said to the
Father in prayer previously in John 17, I have glorified thee
on the earth. I have finished the work that
thou gavest me to do. And after that great prayer,
in the following chapters of John we have the account of how
that work was actually finished in the crucifixion and then the
resurrection from the dead. And when Christ utters that word,
it is finished, why he has done. all that the Father had committed
to him in the eternal covenant. We do well to contemplate the
word then. The hymn writer says, Think aloud
thy dying Lord cried out it is finished. Treasure up that sacred
word whole and undiminished. We do well to meditate in these
things. And this psalm, From the opening
verse to the final verse, we see the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is here in the psalm. And we have a remarkable description
really of his suffering, so graphic in the detail. They pierced my hands and my
feet, he says. They part my garments among them
and cast lots upon my vesture." All of these things are there,
aren't they, in the various accounts that we find in the Evangelist,
the four Gospels concerning the dying of the Lord Jesus. We know how he certainly suffered
greatly at the hands of men. And he speaks of that in the
psalm, verse 12, many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of
Bashan have beset me, they gait upon me with their mouths as
a ravening and roaring lion. Again at verse 16, for doves
of compassmen, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me.
They pierce my hands and my feet, I may tell all my bones. They
look and stare upon me. Oh, what a spectacle! He was
made as he hung there between heaven and earth, making that
great sin atoning sacrifice. He suffered, and he suffered
cruelly. at the hands of wicked men and
yet if we know anything of the grace of God we have to say that
it was our sins our sins that nailed him to that accursed throne
but you know the chief and the principal part of the sufferings
of the Lord Jesus were not those things that he was suffering
in the body But what he was having to endure in his soul, all those
inward troubles, the hidings of the face of God, how he suffers,
you see, at the hand of God. He knew no sin, and yet he was
made sin for us, says the Apostle, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him, that blessed exchange. When He took to Himself all the
sins of His people and nailed them to the cross and in exchange
He gives them all His righteousnesses. All the blessed gospel exchange.
Christ in the sinner's place. And so the sinner now in Christ,
forgiven. reconciles, justifies, how remarkable
it is, but all what inward sufferings he had to endure, the awful darkness
that came upon his soul. We're told how for three hours,
you see, There was such a darkness over the whole earth, a darkness
that could be felt. But it was but a demonstration
of that that was transpiring in the very soul of the Lord
Jesus, the hidings of the face of God. And so he cries out,
My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so
far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? all the roarings of his soul,
the cry of dereliction, that sense of utter desertion, the
wonder of it really. Because the person who died is
none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't simply say,
well, it was his human nature. The human nature didn't have
a personality. A person died upon the cross.
and that person was God manifest in the flesh that is the wonder of who he is and all that he
endures and what was he doing there upon the cross why he was
pouring out his soul onto death look at the language that he
uses verse 14 I am poured out like water and all my bones are
out of joint my heart is like wax It is melted in the midst
of my bowels, my strength is dried up like the potsherd, and
my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, when thou hast brought me into
the dust of death." Oh, the language of Christ. He poured out his
soul unto death, we're told there. in Isaiah 53. He poured out his soul unto death
and was numbered with the transgressors. And he did that willingly and
voluntarily. No man was able to take that
life from him. He was the one who had authority
to lay that life down and so he did, so he did. Here we read then in the words
of our text, none can keep alive his own soul. And as we come
to consider the words of the text this evening, I want to
look at it from two perspectives. Firstly, we must consider it
in terms of the experience of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is
Christ's experience that we have here. But we must also consider
it in terms of the experience of the believer, the child of
God. It is the psalm of David, and David isn't just making a
prophetic pronouncement, he is speaking out of all the depths
of his own soul. David here surely represents
to us not only his greatest son, but those who are also the saved
of the Lord, as David was saved. So we can learn something from
David's experience. But first of all, we must begin
with the Lord Jesus Christ and his experience. We know that
he was a real man. We many times sing that hymn,
number 23, and sometimes I think, well, maybe we flog some of the
hymns too severely, but then one is drawn back to it time
and time again. A man there is. a real man with
wounds still gaping wide from which rich streams of blood once
ran in hands and feet and side no wild fancy of our brains no
metaphor we speak no that was a real man who died there on
the cross at Calvary because he came to save the sinful sons
of men You know the language of the Apostle writing there
in the second chapter of Hebrews. Verily He took not on Him the
nature of angels, but He took upon Him the seed of Abraham.
He's made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death. And for as much as the children
were partakers of flesh and blood, Paul says likewise He took part
of the same. It's interesting, isn't it, to
contrast the opening chapter of Hebrews and the second chapter,
because the opening chapter, of course, speaks so clearly
of his deity. God who, at sundry times and
in diverse manner, spake in time passed unto the fathers by the
prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made
the worlds, who, being the brightness of his glory, the express image
of his person, He is the brightness of the Father's glory. He is
the eternal Son of the eternal Father. He is the image of the
invisible God. And that's a great opening section
that we have in that epistle to the Hebrews. But then in the
second chapter, Opal reminds us that it is that same One,
the eternal Son of God, who became a real man, bone of our bone,
as it were, flesh of our flesh. And how, as a man, of course,
he lived in complete dependence upon God, the life that he lived
here upon the earth. the Lord Jesus Christ, the person
of the Savior in his human nature, how dependent he was, how he
would pray. As a man he prayed because he
was so dependent upon God. He'd go up into the mountain
to pray and he'd spend whole nights in prayer we're told.
And doubtless when the disciples requested him to teach them how
to pray, the reason why they made that request is that because
they were well persuaded that this was a man of prayer. He
knew what prayer was. And they wanted him to tell them
what it was to be a prayer. Oh, he was a real man and his
life was one of dependence, just as our lives are lives of dependence
upon God. And ultimately, this man gave himself as a sacrifice. He made that great sin atoning
sacrifice. He has poured out his soul unto
death. the language of Isaiah 53 and
again there in that chapter when his soul shall make an offering
for sin. Oh he had a human body but he
also had a human soul and Of course, the body and soul
go together, that's what the man is. When God makes the first
man Adam, he makes his body out of the dust of the earth, but
he breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and he becomes
a living soul. And when death is experienced,
there is the separation of body and soul. And that's what the
Lord Jesus Christ experienced. He died. It's interesting, isn't
it, how he speaks here in the psalm, verse 20, he says, deliver
my soul from the swords, my darling, from the power of the dog. And of course what we have there
is that parallelism, which is the peculiar feature of Hebrew
poetry. You get the same truth declared
in such a verse, and you get a slight variation on that particular
truth. But it's very much speaking of
the soul. Deliver my soul. And then he refers to my darling. Or as the margin says, the Hebrew
is literally my only one. My only one. Think of the words
of the Lord Jesus. What is a man profited if he
gained the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a
man give in exchange for his soul? or the soul of man? and the Lord Jesus had a human
soul and it's spoken of here as his darling he was so concerned
for the souls of men that's why he uttered those words what shall
a man give in exchange for his soul? the most noble part of
man is the soul of man, surely it is It's there in the soul,
really, that the image of God is seated. Because God is a spirit. God doesn't have a body such
as we have. No, Christ is God. He's a spirit.
The true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
Where is the image then? We're not to think of God in
physical terms. The image of God in man is seated
in the soul. My only one. my darling. And here in the words of our
text, no man can keep alive his own soul. No man can keep alive
his own soul. Now, is this really true of the
Lord Jesus Christ? Is that really true of the Lord
Jesus Christ? Remember, his whole human nature
was sinless. He was sinless, and the wages of sin is death,
and the soul that sinneth it shall die, and He was without
sin. The words that the angel speaks
to Mary at the Incarnation, the Holy Ghost, shall come upon them.
The power of the highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also
that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. That is the person. That is the
person who became incarnate. The second person in the Trinity
as we say. God the Son. And he takes to
himself a soul and a body. And how can this be? Well, here
is a woman who herself a sinner rejoicing in God her Saviour
but the Holy Ghost is here and he so comes upon that woman that
what is conceived in her womb is an holy thing. A nature, a
human nature that is going to be joined to the Eternal Son
of God without sin. And because without sin, how
can this person ever die? Now, I suppose there's a sense
in which every soul is immortal. The soul doesn't die, does it?
The body dies. The language of Ecclesiastes
12.7, Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the
spirit shall return unto God who gave it. And so, Paul can
say of the believer, he is absent from the body, but he is present
with the Lord. In that sense, the soul is immortal. But the body of the Lord Jesus
Christ is also immortal. It was holy. That holy thing. that was conceived in the Virgin
Mary's womb was a holy soul, yes, but it was
also a holy body. He never sinned, he never thought
one sinful thought or spoke one sinful word or committed one
sinful deed. He was holy, he was harmless,
he was undefiled, he was made separate from sinners. He was
made higher than the heavens. All Peter speaks of him, doesn't
he? Peter writing there in 1 Peter 2.22, who did no sin, neither
was guile found in his soul. He was altogether sinless. And so, Satan tempts him Oh, he's tempted even at the
beginning of his public ministry after his baptism. He is anointed
in a remarkable way with the Spirit of God. God giveth not
the Spirit by measure unto him. And the Spirit descends and he's
baptizing in the form of a dove and lights upon him. And he's
led of the Spirit into the wilderness. Led into the wilderness by the
Spirit to be tempted. Oh, and he's sorely tempted.
He's sorely tempted, but he resists all the temptations. And the devil leaves him for
a season, but only for a season. His whole life, in a sense, is
a scene of temptations. Satan's not inactive, you see,
attacking him. He says to the disciples at the
end, you are they that have continued with me in my temptation. Well,
this man is sorely, sorely tested, tempted. But he can say, the
prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. There was
nothing in him that Satan could take any advantage of. There
was no sinful soul there. When Satan tempts you and me,
there's much in us. There's a fallen nature. and
he so quickly gains the advantage. Well, that's how it is with me,
I feel so often. It's a fearful thing, the devil
comes and he tempts and we fall so quickly. Well, he might take
all his artillery and throw it all at the Lord Jesus and yet
the Lord resists him. He could find nothing healing.
The prince of this world come and he can find nothing can move
the Lord could say that however much he might be tempted and
he was tempted surely we say Christ could not die because
he is without sin he was sinless and yet he must die he must die
because In the eternal covenant, He was that One who was to become
the surety of His people. He was the One who was to die
as their substitute, to die in the sinner's place, in order
to the salvation of sinners. God hath made Him to be seen
for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And so coming back to the words
of the text, And thinking in terms of the
Lord Jesus, none can keep alive his own soul. I like the way
in which Luther renders it. Luther renders it like this,
his soul shall not live. You see, his soul shall not live,
his soul must die. And he must die because he is
going to be obedient to the will of God. and God has given him a work
to accomplish. And he comes not to do his own
will but the will of him who has sent him, and to finish his
work. How can this one die if there's
no cause of death in him? He can only die by a voluntary
sacrifice. And he must die, his soul shall
not live. What does he say? We know the
words there in John 10. Therefore doth my father love
me because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No
man taketh it from me. I have power. I have authority. That's what the word means. I
have authority to lay it down. I have authority to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my father. No man could take his life. And yet, his soul is to die. His soul shall not live. He makes
then that great sin a turning sacrifice. Or that one who died,
that person who died in his human nature, is the very same person
who in this verse, this 29th verse, is to be worshipped. is to be worshipped in His divine
nature. They that be fat upon earth shall
eat and worship. All they that go down to the
dust shall bow before Him. All the great ones of the earth,
the fat upon the earth, the lowly ones like the dust of the earth,
they all have to bow down before Him. They all have to worship
Him. And this is the one who in the
Temptations says to the devil, there in Matthew 4, that you
are to worship God and God only. But he receives worship. We see
him receiving worship so many times in the Gospels. The Canaanites
woman, she worshipped him. Saying, Lord help us. And last week we were considering
those words in Matthew 14, where after He has performed a number
of miracles, the disciples in the ship, they worship Him, saying
they are the Son of God. In His divine nature, this person
is worshipped. He's worshipped. To Him every knee is to bow of
things in heaven things and earth things under the earth every
tongue is to confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the
Father all they that be fat upon earth
shall eat and worship all that they that go down to the dust
shall bow before him and yet none can keep alive his own soul
his soul shall not live he dies or the wonder of it the mystery
of it the mystery of it that he should give himself at that
great sacrifice for sins Christ then is the one that is principally
here but let me say something briefly in the second place with
regards to the Christians experience it's a psalm of David and as I said David He's writing
the psalm, he's writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
but it's not that the Spirit is simply dictating words, and
David is simply writing down what the Spirit dictates to him,
unfeelingly. I remarked last Thursday how
that the apostle in writing his epistles would make use of an
amanuensis, who would write down writing down the words of the
Apostle that was his normal practice just a few of his epistles he
wrote the whole himself but his normal way was to have someone
to act as a sort of secretary and to take the words down and
then Paul would sign off the epistle as it were well that's not the way of inspiration
when it comes to Holy Scripture There's a mystery in the way
in which the Spirit inspires these men. And David, in the
Psalms, is writing out of his soul's experience. He's writing
things that he knows and feels. There is something of David in
the Psalms. There must be. And David is a believer. And
as a believer, he utters these words, None can keep alive his
own soul. And isn't that something that
believers feel? We're the people of God, do we
not feel that? We can't really keep alive our
own souls. We're poor dependents. Dependents on God, dependents
upon the grace of God. Lord, pity outcasts, vile and
base, the poor dependents on thy grace, whom men disturb as
call. condemned and shunned by all
but he always living that life of dependence Jeremiah says O
Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself it is not in
man that walketh to direct his steps no the steps of a righteous
man are all ordered of the Lord we believe that, that's what
the scripture teaches us And we have to live to prove it in
the physical realm. We have to prove it there in
the physical realm. God is our Creator. God is our
Sustainer. The words of the 100th Psalm,
Know ye that the Lord he is God, it is he that hath made us, not
we ourselves, we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. He
has made us, we are His people, He cares for us as a shepherd,
cares for His sheep. And of course, the 139th Psalm
reminds us in a wonderful fashion, doesn't it, of the way in which
God mysteriously forms us in the wombs of our mothers. Psalm 139, verse 13, Thou hast
possessed my reins, our kidneys, thou hast covered me in my mother's
womb, I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made, marvellous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right
well, my substance was not hid from thee when I was made in
secret and curiously wrought in the lowest part of the earth,
thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect, and in thy
book all my members were written which in continuance were fashioned
when as yet there was none of them." Or the wickedness of the
abortionist, you see. God here created. Not as he does
at the beginning, of course, when he simply says the word,
but this is how our life begins. We're formed, we're fashioned
by God in the very wombs of our mother and he speaks of it in
a sense here in Psalm 22 verse 9 thou art he that took me out
of the womb thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's
breast I was cast upon thee from the womb thou art my God from
my mother's belly now we we're so dependent upon God for our
very existence, the fact that we're here. We owe our very lives
to God. He is the one who has made us.
He is the one who graciously provides for us and preserves
us. Again in Psalm 36, O Lord, Thou
preservest man and beast. God preserves His creatures. Lord Job says it, in whose hand
is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all things. We draw the breath, what are
we doing? We're sucking in the mercies of God. Our lives are
being preserved. And we're to recognize that,
in Him we live and move and have our being. And He provides for
us, and we're to acknowledge that in our prayers. He gives
us each day our daily bread. And that's how we pray. We live
from day to day, give us this day our daily bread. I like the
way in which it's different in Matthew 6 to how it is in Luke
11. In Luke 11 it says, give us day
by day our daily bread. It's a daily provision. And it's
sufficient for the day, really. But then it's a continual daily
provision. It's a provision from day to
day. Oh God, you see, He preserves
us. And the Lord Jesus, of course,
brings it out so wonderfully, really, in the Sermon on the
Mountain. You know the passage there at
the end of Matthew chapter 6. Verse 25 Therefore I say unto
you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what
ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is
not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold
the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap,
nor gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are ye not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought,
can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field. Have they grow? They toil not,
neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field which
today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you? O ye of little faith! Therefore
Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we
drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these
things do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth
that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you. Take therefore no thought for
the morrow, For the morrow shall take thought for the things of
itself, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Or Neverman
spake like this man. But see how we come at the end
there to priorities. We're not to take thoughts really
for the things of this life. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God. and His righteousness and all these things shall be added
unto you. And so we have to come to the
spiritual realm. If God is that one who must preserve
us with regards to our physical being and make every provision
for us and sustain our lives, how much more is that the case
when it comes to our spiritual lives? None can keep alive his
own soul. A man cannot quicken his soul,
let alone keep that soul alive when it is quickened. How can
we know anything of the grace of God? We must first receive
a new life, a spiritual life, because by nature we are dead
in trespasses and in sins. And Christ says, Verily, verily,
except a man be born again, He cannot see the Kingdom of God. Ye must be born again. Oh, ye must be born again. And what does the Apostle say
when he writes to that church at Ephesus? You hath he quickened. Oh, they're born again. You hath
he quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sins. That's where they were. That's
what they were in their very natures. Nothing of spiritual
life, you see. Nothing at all of spiritual life
can ever precede the new birth. We must receive spiritual life.
at the very beginning of our experience. We can know nothing.
The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God,
they are foolishness to him. Neither can he know them because
they are spiritually discerned. It all begins there, with the
new birth. And what is the evidence? What
is the evidence of spiritual life? Well, where there is spiritual
life, surely there will be spiritual faculties in the soul of that
person. And where will that be seen?
Well, there'll be... there'll be something of prayer,
surely. There'll be sighs, and cries,
and groanings. There'll be hungerings, and thirstings. Or there'll be yearnings, longings. There'll be seekings after God.
That's the sign of life. if the spirit comes into our
souls. The Swami says, quicken us and
we will call upon thy name. We can never call upon that name
until we're quickened. Again the Swami says, when thou
says seek in my face my heart said unto thee thy face Lord
will I seek. But the Lord has to speak that
word first of all. He has to speak it with authority.
He has to come and say to a seeker, I face, and then... Oh, that's
an effectual word. Then the heart says, I face,
Lord, will I seek. And don't we need that? All that
gracious work. Think of the language of Isaiah
the prophet. making his confession there in
chapter 26, O Lord our God, he says, are the Lords beside thee
of our dominion over us, but by thee only. Will we make mention of thy name?
By thee only. It's all of God's. For thou must
work all our works in us, he says. All our works. It's the
work of God. None can keep alive his own soul.
We have to live that life of complete, utter dependence upon
God in the physical realm with regards
to our mortal life here upon the earth, but altogether with
regards to our spiritual life. We have to be kept, and kept
by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation, ready
to be revealed in the lifetime. Oh, the Lord Jesus Christ is
here in the psalm. It's principally of Christ that
we read in this psalm. But thank God He's a real man. And He's one touch with the feeling
of all our infirmities. He was tempted like as we are,
yet He's without sin. And we're to come then to that
throne of grace. We're to come to God through
the Lord Jesus Christ that we might obtain mercy. and find grace to help in all
our times of need. Oh, the Lord then be pleased
to bless this short text to us tonight. All they that be fat upon earth
shall eat and worship, all that go down to the dust shall bow
before him. He is to be worshipped, and none
can keep alive his own soul. May the Lord bless his word to
us. We're going to sing our concluding
praise today. It's the hymn 943, the tune is
Mainzer 364. The God of grace delights to hear
the plaintiff cry the humble prayer, nor shall the weakest
saint complain that he has sought the Lord in vain. Seek Him, I
face, Jehovah cries. With joy the contrite heart replies,
Thy face I seek with power descent from every foe my soul defends. 943 to the tune 364