Well, let us turn to God's Word,
and I want to turn again to Psalm 22, and turn into the words that
we find here at verse 29. Psalm 22, I'll read 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 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 and I really
want to centre your thought for a while tonight on the final
words, his last clause of the verse, and none can keep alive
his own soul. We know that the psalm is messianic,
it's a prophecy of Christ. We were of course looking at
the psalm only on the last Lord's Day where we considered the opening
words and then the closing words of the psalm. We're familiar
with that opening verse, well-known verse, because it's taken up
by the Lord Jesus in the gospel in the midst of all those awful
sufferings upon the cross he utters the word my God my God
why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping
me? and from the words of my roaring
repeated as I say in Matthew's account and also We have it in
Mark and his account of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. And we did
look at that remarkable cry of the Lord Jesus only last Lord's
Day morning. A dreadful cry, a sense of desertion. And yet also the prayer, and
there's appropriation in the prayer. although he feels that
God has forsaken him yet he's still my God my God and having
considered those words we went on in the evening to look at
the last words there at the end of verse 31 he hath done this
and as I say the this the word this is one that's been added
by the translators as he's indicated here as we see it in italics
he literally finishes the psalm does David by saying he hath
done and we can equate that with the other cry that the Lord made
from the cross when he said it is finished The hymn writer says, Think how
loud thy dying Lord cried out, It is finished. Treasure up that
sacred word whole and undiminished. How we should treasure up these
words then. They're not just the words of
David, they are the words of the Lord Jesus, David's greatest
son, and the whole psalm from beginning to end, clearly speaks
of the Lord Jesus Christ and his sufferings. How he suffered,
how he suffered at the hands of wicked men. Verse 12, many
balls of compassmen, strong balls of bastion have beset me round. They gait upon me with their
mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. verse 16, for dogs have
compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me,
they pierced my hands and my feet, I mate out all my bones,
they look and stare upon me, they part my garments among them
and cast lots upon my vesture. But we know that his chief, his
principal sufferings were those inward troubles, the darkness
that he felt in the very depths of that soul, that human soul,
the hidings of the face of God, and so that awful cry that we
have in the very first words of the psalm. But as I said,
I want to look tonight at the significance of these words towards
the end, the end of verse 29, and none can keep alive his own
soul. taking these words in as a text
and dealing with two things really two simple points here we have
the experiences of Christ but also the experiences of the believer
and that's how I want to look at the words in the first place
the experience of the Lord Jesus Christ we know that His life was a very
real human life. You're going to sing that lovely
hymn on the human nature of Christ in a minute. The man there is
a real man, or the reality of the human nature of the Lord
Jesus. And there we see it in so many
parts of God's Word. We have it there, of course,
in Hebrews. The opening chapter of Hebrews
very much sets before us the great truth of His diet. He is
God. He is the eternal Son of God. And that's unfolded in a remarkable
way with several references to Old Testament scriptures in the
opening chapter of Hebrews. But then in the next chapter,
the second chapter, we see also the blessed truth of the reality
of his human nature. Verily he took not on him the
nature of angels, says the Apostle, but he took upon him the seed
of Abraham. Who is Abraham's seed? He is
the seed of the woman. That great promise that we have
right at the beginning in the very chapter that records the
fall of man, the sin, the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and God's promise
here at Genesis 3.15 concerning the seed of the woman who would
bruise Satan's head even as he bruised the heel of that seed. The seed of the woman, the seed
of Abraham, the seed of David. He is a man, and we have his
genealogies, don't we, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
He is one who, in his human nature then, has descendants from men. For as mentioned, as the children
were partakers of flesh and blood, he likewise took part of the
same, we read there in Hebrews 2.14. And as a man he lived a life
of dependence on God, as all men live their lives in complete
dependence upon God. And we see that, we see it in
the fact that he was a man of prayer. We're told on one occasion
how he went up into a mountain apart to pray, and when the evening
was come he was there alone. and yet not alone, how he would
pour out his heart until his father was told elsewhere that
he would spend whole nights in prayer to God. And we have the
record, of course, of those remarkable prayers that we find him uttering
in all the agonies of his soul in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And now, as he gives us a pattern prayer, so he himself prays the
very pattern that he has set before us. What is his request
there in the garden? He wants the will of God to be
done. Not my will, he says, but thine be done. He was a man of
real prayer. And ultimately, he gave himself
in sacrifice He offered up His soul. He experienced that death. It is the separation of the soul
from the body. There in Isaiah 53, 12, He hath
poured out His soul unto death. And of course, here we see that
that is the worst aspect of all His sufferings. that that he
experiences at the hand of God. He says in verse 14, I am poured
out like water. Oh, he poured out his soul. I
am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of
my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a putcher. My tongue cleaveth to my jaws,
and thou hast brought me into the dust of death." It was not
so much what he suffered at the hands of the multitude, the people,
but what he was suffering there at the hand of God. And we saw
this, of course, when we were considering those opening words
on the Lord's Day morning, that cry in verse 1, those roarings,
oh my God, I cry in the daytime that thou hear us not and in
the night season and am not silent that thou art holy O thou that
inhabit us the praises of Israel our fathers trusted in thee they
trusted and thou didst deliver them they cried unto thee and
were delivered they trusted in thee and were not confounded
is he not one who trusts as he lives that life of faith that
life of dependence Oh, but how he feels himself to be a worm,
he says, a nomad. He is never anything less than
the great I am that I am. And yet he speaks of himself
as a worm. Oh, he comes to die, he makes
his soul an offering for sin. What does he say concerning that
soul? In verse 20, deliver my soul
from the sword My darling from the power of the dark. And as
I said on Lord's Day, we have those parallel statements there.
He speaks of my soul in the first clause, and then my darling in
the second clause. One and the same thing he's speaking
of. His soul, his darling, my only
one, is what the Hebrew literally says according to what we have
in the margin. My only one. or the reality of
this man's human nature. He has a soul. And what is a
man profited, says Christ, if he should go in the whole world
and lose his own soul? Or what should a man give in
exchange for his soul? None can keep alive his own soul. Now is what we have here in this
verse, or this part of the verse that I said I wanted to concentrate
on, is this statement really true with regards to the Lord
Jesus Christ? We know that his human nature
was sinless. The words of the angel to Mary
the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 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 Holy thing,
that human nature that was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb
of a sinful woman, she was a virgin, she knew not a man but she is
with child and she is a child of the Holy Ghost, so she is
a sinner. What is conceived by the Spirit of God in her womb
is holy, it's joined to the eternal Son of God. His name shall be
called the Son of God. Now, we know that every soul
is immortal. When we come to die there is
that separation between body and soul. there in Ecclesiastes
12, then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the
spirit shall return unto God who gave it. It is appointed unto men once
to die, then cometh the judgment. There is a separation, a terrible
separation between body and soul. and the body returns to the dust,
laid in the grave, sees corruption, but the spirit goes to God who
gave it. We have never-dying souls. How solemn it is! What shall
a man give in exchange for his soul, says the Lord Jesus. But
the remarkable thing with the person of Christ, of course,
is that it's not only his soul that is immortal, but also his
body. His body is also holy, that holy
thing. And in life he is holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens. Peter speaks of him who did no
sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. We have these statements scattered
throughout the word of God concerning this one, the prince of this
world cometh, he says, and hath nothing in me. Oh, there's nothing
in the Lord Jesus with regards to that sinless nature that the
tempter is able to take advantage of. He was tempted, yes, in all
points, like as we are yet, Paul says, without sin. He is altogether
immortal. He could not die. He could not
die because he was sinless. The soul that sinneth shall die
and he never sins. He could not die and yet he must
die. And he must die because in the
eternal covenant He became the surety to all those sinners that
God gave him to save. Again he says there in that second
chapter of Hebrews, Behold I and the children which God hath given
them. God has given him a people to save. And how does he save
that people? Well, God hath made him to be
seen for us. says Paul, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. It's interesting because in his
commentary here on this particular verse, his 29th verse, Luther
renders the word, his soul shall not live. And you'll see how
in the previous clause It does speak of a certain person. All
that go down to the dust shall bow before Him. Who is this Him? This is the
one that is speaking in the psalm, and it's the word of God of course,
but it's the words of the Lord Jesus Christ that we have in
this psalm. It's Christ speaking, or it speaks
of Christ, and here it speaks of Him. All that go down to the
dust shall bow before Him. To Him every knee is to bow,
every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God. That's what we're told in Philippians
chapter 2. Well, this Him is the one that
Luther reckons must die. Oh, he must die. His soul shall not live. That's
the way in which the Reformer renders the words. His soul shall
not live. And yet, he couldn't die. The only way
he could die would be by a voluntary sacrifice, and that's what he
was, of course. He need not die, but he willingly
dies. And he says, therefore doth my
father love me because I lay down my life that I might take
it again. No man layeth it from me, taketh
it from me. I lay it down of myself. I have
power to lay it down. And I have power to take it again. And the word really is authority.
It is authority. This commandment have I received
of my Father. And so the words do refer principally
to the Lord Jesus. It's Christ's experience that
is being described in the psalm or it's Christ himself who is
speaking in the psalm. And he could not keep alive his
own soul. Because he must do that work
that the Father had given him to do. He must complete the task
by His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross.
But then also here, as it's the experience of Christ, so it is
the experience of those who are Christ's. He is the Head, His
people are the Mother. It's the psalm of David. To the chief musician, upon Egereth
Shehar, the psalm of David. We have the translation of that
Hebrew expression in the margin, the hind of the morning, upon
the hind of the morning, obviously it has something to do with the
way it was to be used and sung in the temple worship of God,
precisely what That setting means the hind of the morning. I don't
pretend to know and I don't find any help in what the commentators
say. But the important thing is it's
a psalm of David. We know that. Because that's
what the title tells us. And the title is part of the
inspired word of God. And David isn't just writing
these words as they are dictated to him by God. That's not the
way of God in inspiration. Though these holy men, they speak,
they write as they're moved, as they're carried along, as
they're borne along by the Spirit, but the Spirit is working strangely
and mysteriously in them, and they're expressing something
of their own experiences. This is David's experience. This
is the believer's experience. None can keep alive his own soul. Is it not a truth that we are
always dependent upon God, ever dependent upon God for everything? 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. all our ways, all our times,
everything about us is in the hands of God. Now that's true,
of course, in the physical realm. What are we? We are God's creation,
God's creatures. We have those words in the 100th
Psalm, I know or know ye that the Lord he is God, it is he
that hath made us, not we ourselves. We are the sheep of His pasture.
He cares for us. He cares for us. He is the one
who has created us. He is the one who formed us in
the wombs of our mothers. Those are remarkable words, aren't
they? In the 139th Psalm. You know the passage there. The
Psalm speaks of God's omniscience, his omnipresence, he knows all
things, he's in all places. And what does David say here
in the psalm, verse 13? Thou hast possessed my reins,
my kidneys literally, my inmost parts. Thou hast possessed my
reins, 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. All that that is in the womb, in procreation,
it's the work of God. It's the work of God. That fetus
that is formed at the conception, it's the work of God. How solemn
it is that men destroy God's works, or the awful sin of man. Our physical being then is from
God. He is the one who holds our breath
in His hands. The psalmist again says, O Lord,
Thou preservest man and beast. This is the one in whom Paul
says we live and move and have our being. We are such dependent
creatures. Our very lives are continual
in his hand. If he would, God could take our
breath away in a moment. But what is true in the physical
realm is of course also true in the spiritual realm and surely
This is what God's people recognize in such a statement as this,
none can keep alive his own soul. No man can either quicken his
soul, or when the soul is quickened, keep that soul alive. Oh, the Lord Jesus clearly makes
the point, doesn't he, when he speaks of the necessity of regeneration,
a new birth. Verily, verily, except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Ye must be
born again. Why? Because what are we? Spiritually, we're those who
were conceived in sin, shapen in iniquity. Oh, we know the language of Paul
there in Ephesians 2, you hath he quickened who were dead. in
trespasses and in sins, or having the understanding dark and alienated
from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in us.
That's our condition. We cannot give ourselves new
life, spiritual life. And as we cannot give ourselves
that spiritual life, so we cannot keep that spiritual life alive. It is altogether the gift of
God. And what is the evidence? What
is the evidence of that life? What is the evidence of spiritual
birth coming into the soul of that sinner? Well, where there
is that birth, there will be spiritual faculties. There'll
be prayer. There'll be sighs and cries and
groanings. There'll be those seekings after
God. Well, how does the psalmist pray
to God? Quicken us and we will call upon
thy name. We cannot keep alive our own
soul. We have that new life, but we need that life to be continually
revived and refreshed, renewed day by day. If we're going to
pray, God must come to us and quicken us again and again. The
psalmist says again, doesn't he? Psalm 27,8, When thou sayest,
Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee thy face,
Lord, will I seek. It's as God utters the Word,
as God speaks the Word. And with that Word there comes
the enabling, the empowering. When God says it, Seek ye my
face, our heart, is then unable to respond and say, Thy face,
O Lord, will I seek. We see it time and again. Think
of the language that we have in Isaiah, Isaiah 26, 13, O Lord
our God, are the lords beside Thee of our dominion over us?
But by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name. And it's
so emphatic. It's the only, by the only will
we make mention of thy name. How can we call upon the Lord
God, except the Lord God enable us? And isn't this the experience
of the Lord Jesus? The amazing thing is that the
Lord Jesus is so identified with us in our humanity. He knew infirmities,
not sinful infirmities, but sinless infirmities. and how he feels
these things on the cross in all things or he was tempted
like as we are in all our affliction he is afflicted and he is that
one who is able to keep alive our souls we cannot preserve
that spiritual life in us in and of ourselves and we need
the Lord's continual care and keeping, kept, kept by the power
of God through faith unto salvation. Where would we be? What would
we be? But for that constant ministry of the Lord God Himself,
reviving us, refreshing us. Oh, that we might live then that
life of faith, ever looking to the Lord, ever relying upon Him
even now as we would come to Him again in prayer that He would
as the psalmist requests quicken us so that we might call upon
His name and call upon Him in faith without faith we know it's
impossible to please Him neither cometh to God must believe that
He is and is the rewarder of all that diligently seek Him
we need that faith then that is of the operation of God or
we need the Holy Ghost Himself, that Spirit of grace and of supplications. God the Lord, help us and bless
us. And as we come now to pray, before
we do pray, we're going to sing our second praise. It's at hymn
23, as I indicated, that speaks to us of the reality of the Lord's
human nature. Number 23, 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 sight. This wondrous man of whom we
tell is true almighty God. He bought our souls from death
and hell to price his own heart's blood. The tune is Irish 160,
hymn number 23. Oh.