I'm back to Psalm 88. I titled this message, The Darkest Psalm
Ever Written. This has been said by other writers, to be the darkest
psalm of all the psalms. This is a psalm of the cross. It starts out gloomy and it ends
in darkness with all His friends forsaking Him. All of His acquaintances,
His lovers and friends being put away from Him. As I was reading this several
times today, I thought this has the cloud of Sinai hanging over
it. And as we look at this psalm,
I want you in your mind, the mind that God gave you, the spiritual
mind, I want you in your mind, to hear the voice of the Lord
Jesus Christ in this psalm crying out in darkness. Remember how
the sun didn't shine for three hours, was it? This psalm belongs to Him. I
don't know what Heman, the one who wrote it, his name is Heman,
which means faithful. Faithful. And our Lord is the
faithful servant. Under all the trials and the
torment that He was put through, He never broke. The thought came
to me the day that of all that He suffered, He never broke rank. He never broke rank. He faithfully
tread the winepress of God's wrath alone. Alone. Now, I do not know what all that
Heman here went through. I know he experienced a lot of
what he's talking about here, but he's prophesied. This is
a Messianic psalm. This is a psalm of the cross.
It's much like Psalm 22, which is a psalm of the cross. But
that psalm ends with light, doesn't it? When you read Psalm 22, my
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Then when you get to the
end of it, why, it's good. It's good. But this psalm, all
the way through is darkness. And I know, I know, and I thought
about this as I was studying and preparing to come down here
and preach this. I know I can't even scratch the
surface of the sufferings that Jesus Christ went through in
order to save us from our sins. I can't even begin to imagine
what the wrath and terror of God is like. I can't imagine
that. And I thank God, I and you, who
believe we will never experience that. God has revealed it to
us in a measure. We have some understanding of
it. But to know it, only the Lord
can know it. Only the Lord can suffer such
torment. Only He can do so and live. And
live to tell about it. But this psalm shows the greatness
of the sufferings of Jesus Christ. There's no light in it, basically. Now we see in verse 1 and 2,
the faith of Christ in His darkest hour. In His darkest hour, He
cries out, Oh God of my salvation. That's what He had to hang on
to. That's all He had to hang on
to in that darkest hour was that God was His salvation and He
knew it and He never let go of that. Let's remember that. When we go through what He puts
us through, let's never let go of this. God is my salvation. I'm going to come through this.
I'm going to come through this. But He starts out here and He
says, Oh God of my salvation. We see in His darkest hour that
He never quit trusting. He never quit trusting. He never
quit crying for help. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
supreme example in perseverance in prayer, in perseverance in
faith. We see here in verses 1, 2, 9,
and 13 how He continued to hang on to God in prayer in all His
trouble. and all his heartache, he clung
to his God, and our God, as a man. We see him here in his humanity,
suffering, and crying out, and not one time breaking rank. He
held on. He believed God. You know, his
perfect faith, his perfect obedience, is our righteousness. It's our
righteousness. You know, many men and women,
they cry in trouble, but they don't always cry to God. Many
of them cry to a God who can't save. They cry to other men who
can't do anything for them. But Christ cried to God who could
save Him. And we cry to the same God who
can save us in times of trouble. And in verse 2, Our Lord never
took being heard for granted. Let's never take prayer for granted.
Just a little while ago, we were reading back in the study there. Doug was reading and Doug prayed.
And as Doug prayed, the thought hit me. What a privilege to be
able to call upon God, the God of heaven and earth. And as Doug
prayed, it just thrilled my soul that we were able to call on
God to help us. He asked God to help me. You better believe I pray that
He heard him. Because I need that help. I need
His help. You need His help. But our Lord
really needed His help here in this psalm. And he never took
prayer for granted. He never took an audience with
God Almighty for granted. And he knew that if God would
give him an audience, that if he would hear his prayer, he
could ask no more. And sooner or later, things would
be well. He believed that. He said, Let my prayer come before
thee. Let it come into your presence. Incline your ear unto my cry. Here's the high priest who intercedes
for himself and for us." Because whatever happens to him happens
to us. Whatever belongs to him belongs
to us. And here's our high priest interceding
for himself, and in doing so, he intercedes for us. And here, listen, verse 3, our
substitute opens up his soul to our troubles. Can you imagine doing that? Can
you imagine completely opening up yourself, your soul, your
very being to someone else's troubles? Especially someone
that hates you. And you open yourself up to their
troubles. Think about that. Our Lord did
that. We were enemies in our minds
by wicked works. And this trouble here, this soul
trouble He had, is because of us. It's because He's our surety. Solomon said, He that's surety
for another shall smart for it. He'll hurt for it. He'll be pained
for it. And our Lord is our surety. And
here we see and hear Him smarting for being our surety. He was saturated. Oh, I thought
about this. I thought, He's saturated in
our troubles. Our troubles entered into His
soul. And He was saturated with them.
And He was ready to die. You know, He said in the Garden
of Gethsemane, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful. Even unto death I'm
going to die right here. That's how sorrowful. That's
how exceedingly his soul was troubled. I thought about this
and I wrote it down. It means something to me because
I was thinking of this cry that he's making here because he says,
for my soul is full of troubles and my life. For 33 years he walked on this
earth. He's now at the door of death. But not the death that
you and I, the believer, die. He's dying the death of a criminal. He's dying the death we ought
to die. That's the death he's about to die. He's drawn nigh
to the grave. He's there at the grave. Real hell is when it's in your
soul. It's when it's in your soul.
When you feel the fire, and you and I won't feel that. We won't
feel it. But He did. The fire of God. God, the Scripture says, is a
consuming fire. And that consuming fire was burning
in His soul. And there was no let-up. There
was absolutely no let-up. You know, some of you, I don't
know your lives, your whole lives, I know since I've been here,
but I have known people that's really gone through some soul
suffering, I mean some serious suffering. And I have thought
before, I have thought of this, and this thought has gone through
my mind before. Lord, let me breathe, just let up just a little,
let me breathe. Let me breathe just a little.
Don't you think Job felt that way? Let me breathe. Just give me a little break here. Just give me a little breath.
Christ, once He entered into this suffering, the wrath of
God never let up. The burning never let up. The
fire of God's wrath, the terror of God's wrath never let up. And He's doing that for me. The Word of God says He bore
our sicknesses and carried our sorrows. He was acquainted with our grief
and our sorrows. They were His acquaintance. They
were His familiars. He knew sorrow and grief very
well. He knew them. He said, my soul is full of troubles,
my life draws nigh unto the grave. And he was numbered with the
transgressors. In verse 4, I am counted with
them that go down into the pit. I'm counted with them. I'm numbered
with the transgressors. He's numbered with us. Oh, God's dealing with him like
He's dealing with a lost man, like He's dealing with an enemy.
That's the way God's dealing with him right now. I'm counted. I'm reckoned up. That's like
an accounting number, something you would do in accounting, reckoned.
I'm counted. I'm numbered. I'm reckoned up
with those who are going into the pit. That pit of corruption,
that bottomless pit. I'm reckoned up with those who
are going into the bottomless pit. Can you imagine that? Here is
the Holy One of Israel. Here is the Son of God. And He's
counted with transgressors. He's numbered with them. And I am as a man that has no
strength, And they said, you know, he delivered others. Let's see if he can save himself.
He couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't save
himself. Not save me and you. He was as
a man who has no strength. The wrath of God was so heavy
upon him that when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, he
sweat great drops of blood. Have you ever sweat? Have you
ever sweat any blood? in light of God's wrath? You know, when you first came
under repentance, when God first convicted you of sin, did you
sweat drops of blood? No, you didn't. I didn't either.
But our Lord, there in Gethsemane, His sweat, the blood came from
His skin. It came out of His pores. He
was under such a strain that blood poured forth out of His
pores. And he says there in verse 5,
he said, I'm free among the dead. I'm without strength and free
among the dead. That means, listen, Jesus Christ
really experienced death. And not just the dying of the
body. He experienced that second death that you and I are not
going to experience. That wrath of God. He was cut
off, it says, out of the land of the living. free among the
dead, cut off from the living, like the slain that lie in the
grave. In other words, like those who've
been slain in battle, and they've been robbed, and then they dig
a big grave. You've seen it. They dig a mass
grave, and they just throw the bodies over in it? That's the
idea here. or whom thou rememberest. He
said, free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave,
whom thou rememberest no more, you take care of no more. You
know, everybody on this earth right now is being taken care
of by God. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, the
sun shines on the just and the unjust. The just and the unjust
ate God's food and breathed God's air today, but I tell you what,
when you're dead, that's over. The providential care of God
is over. You're remembered no more in
that sense. You're remembered no more. And
they are cut off from thy hand, forsaken of God. My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Why are you so far from the words
of my roaring? I would that God would really
open our hearts and eyes and give us a real sense, as much
as we can in this flesh and this life, of the sufferings of Jesus
Christ. I tell you, we wouldn't have
a bad day from here on if we could really get a hold of His
sufferings for us and what He has delivered us from. But this is of God, we see in
verse 6, this is of God. It's ordained of God because
He says here, Thou hast laid Me in the lowest pit. He's not
blaming Satan or this one or that one. He said, This is of
God. You've laid Me in the lowest
pit in darkness. That's the lowest pit. That outer
darkness. He said, You laid Me. You laid
Me in it. in darkness, in deep, deep affliction,
deep affliction, deep sorrow, deep sorrow. And I tell you this, God, God
did this. God did this so that he could
bring me and you out of darkness. He could bring us out of the
outer darkness. Our Lord went into the darkness.
He laid in the pit that He might bring us out of it. He brought us out of it. Oh, Thou hast laid me in the
lowest pit in darkness. Remember the sun refused to shine? The sun didn't shine no more
for hours there. And I'm sure they could just
hear Him on the cross. As he cried out, My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? I thirst. This is of God. This is between
God the Father, God the Son, with justice being executed to
its fullest, fullest measure. By the time this is over, there
will not be one T that's not crossed and one I that's not
dotted in the justice of God when He's done with them. Our Lord felt the full fury of
God's wrath there in verse 7. Thy wrath. He's not talking about
chastening here. You and I are chastened of God.
The children of God are chastened of God. We've never tasted God's
wrath, and we never will. But listen, thy wrath lieth hard
upon me. It lies hard upon me. And thou
hast afflicted me with all thy ways, just one after another. They just keep coming. It's just
like they won't stop. They won't stop. All that time
hanging on the cross, they won't stop. It's just one blow after
another. It's just one stripe after another
stripe. Well, no forty stripes save one
here. He's dying for all the sins of
all the elect of God. And I tell you, we can't even
begin to dive into the evil of sin. But by Him doing this, by
Him doing this, you know what He's doing? He's purging us of
our sins. He's purging away sin. He's putting
it away. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me,
and thou hast afflicted me. He didn't say those Romans are
afflicting me, those Jews, they're afflicting me. He said, you're
doing it. This is between me and God. Between me and God,
He's put us out of the way. He's put us out of the way, and
He's stood in the way. Remember, He is the way, as we
looked at last week. He's standing there, and He's
taken the full blow and force of what's coming at us. But He's
taken it. And all forsook Him in this hour.
In verse 8, "...all forsook him." He was called a blasphemer. They
called him everything. And he says here, "...they all
turned on him. Thou hast put away mine acquaintance
far from me." He didn't blame them, did he? You know, he said,
Peter, do you love me? He didn't say, Peter, why did
you do that for? You know why he didn't say that?
Because he knew God did it. He put him away. He said, you
have put all my acquaintances away from me. You know why He
did that? You know why God put all of His
acquaintances away from Him? To fulfill the Scriptures. If
you go back in the Old Testament, in Matthew 26, 55 and 56, you
can see that, that it's to fulfill the Scriptures. In Psalm 38,
11, you can see that. It's to fulfill the Scriptures.
Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me. Thou hast made me
an abomination to them. I am shut up. I am locked in. I am locked in. You see, when
he became our surety, he locked himself in to standing in our
place and paying the debt. What was it Paul said to Philemon?
He said, if Onesimus owes you anything, you put that to my
account, I will pay it. That's exactly what Jesus Christ
has done. That's what He did before the
world began. You put that on my account. You put that on my
account. I'll stand surety for them. I cannot come forth. I'm shut
up. I'm locked up. I cannot come
forth. I've got to go through this.
I've got to go through it. The surety is caught by the Law. The Law has Him. Right there
hanging on Calvary, the Law of God Almighty has Him. The thunder and the lightning
that was heard at Mount Sinai is now being taken out and directed
on that man, Jesus Christ. And He's bearing the full brunt
of it. And in doing so, He's purging
us from our sins. And in all His afflictions, He
never lost hope. Look here in verse 9. He never
quit praying, which is easy to do. Now you know, you know, we
break a fingernail, we're ready to quit. I tell you, it does
not take much for us to get ready and quit, does it? It doesn't
take much for us to complain. I mean, if you just look back
through the last eight hours, I'm sure we complained about
something. I guarantee you. He never did. He never did. In all his afflictions, in all
that torment, in all that torment, he never lost hope. He never
quit praying. He never quit praying. He says, My eye, my eye mourneth. My eye is sore. Have you ever
cried so much that your eyes are sore from wiping your tears? I don't know. Have you ever done
that? You've cried so much that your eyes are sore from wiping
the tears. Mine eye mourneth by reason of
affliction. It's not the loss of a loved
one. He wept at Lazarus' grave, but
he wasn't weeping over Lazarus. Lazarus was asleep. But he felt
what Mary and Martha felt. Matthew Henry said this, and
I think it was the best explanation of that verse, because I've heard
him say he wept because he was bringing him back, but I think
he wept because of this, he felt everything he took away. He felt
everything he took away. Oh, by reason of affliction,
Lord, I have called daily, daily upon thee. I have stretched
out my hands unto thee, like a child to a parent, hollering
for help, crying for help, and he's not getting it. He's not
getting it. I remember our granddaughter
one time, she was probably about, maybe about four years old, I
think. We were at the grocery store, she was with us, I don't
know, Vicki may not remember this, We walked around, and she
was following us. We walked around, and evidently
she stopped and looked at something. And boy, we heard her crying,
and we came back around, and she was frozen. She was frozen. We just picked her up, you know,
comforted her. I thought of that today, and I thought of our Lord
just crying for help, but no comfort coming. His Father not coming back around
the corner to get Him. No, He's going to go through
this, and He's going to die. I have called daily. He never
let up." Boy, what an example we have to follow here. Whenever
we cry, whenever the Lord puts us on our knees and we cry, let's
remember our Lord cried daily. He never let up. And here's an argument by Christ
to be raised from the dead. Verse 10, 11, and 12. Here's an argument by Him to
be raised from the dead and that His soul not be left in hell
to seek corruption, or in the grave to seek corruption. "...Wilt
thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise
thee? Shall that happen if I am not
raised from the dead?" If the Lord Jesus Christ dies and He's
not raised from the dead, there's no wonders to tell you. I have
nothing to tell you. There's no wonders for me to
tell you. There's no wonder of grace. If he dies like we die, or like
man dies, and he perishes, and he's not raised from the dead,
there's nothing to tell. There's nothing to tell. If Christ
is not risen, we are what? Yet in our sins. Shall thy lovingkindness
be declared in the grave? If I stay in the grave, is the
lovingkindness of God declared? I tell you, we declare the lovingkindness
of God in a risen Lord. Not a dead one. He died, but
he didn't stay that way. He didn't stay dead. Shall thy
lovingkindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness
in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in
the dark, or thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? Listen to what Isaiah says here
in Isaiah 38, 18, 19. This is Hezekiah says this. You
can go read that in chapter 38 sometime. But remember, Hezekiah
was going to die, and he prayed, and the Lord gave him, added
years back to him. But he says this. Hezekiah says,
For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee,
They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth, the
living. The living. Well, I remember
Jack Shanks preaching on this one time. I think he preached
it at 13th Street. It caught my attention. The living, he
shall praise thee. He shall praise thee as I do
this day. The Father to the children shall
make known thy truth. It's the living. It's the living
that praise Thee. And here's the hope and here's
the argument of our Lord on the cross is this. It's the living. If I live, I shall praise You. And the whole
congregation shall praise You. I shall praise You. And then here in verse 13, I
want us to see that our Lord was always early to pray. Someone said early prayer is
the best prayer. Our Lord's first matter of business
in the morning, every morning was with His Father. He would
get up before daybreak, before dawn, and He would go off to
Himself and pray. And I guarantee you, a whole
lot of that prayer had to do with me and you, right now. It had to do with me and you. Our high priest, he never left
us out. Unto thee, he said, but unto
thee have I cried, O Lord, and in the morning shall my prayer
prevent thee, or be before thee? It's like the Jews would have
a time to pray in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening.
And he's saying, here, I'll pray before that. I'm not going to
wait until 7 o'clock. I'm going to pray. He's up before
dawn. I just wish I would do this. I
wish I would do this, and I wish we would do this. I wish every
day would start on our knees, and I don't mean we have to be
on our physical knees, but on our spiritual knees, I wish we
would start the day calling upon God, calling upon our Father,
and then face the day. And then he said, listen here,
he asked this question, why, verse 14, why? Lord, why castest
thou off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from
me? Why hast thou forsaken me?" You
know, I read this and read this and read this, and then the thought
came to me. He's not asking for information
for himself. This information is for me and
you. The answer to this question is for me and you. That God might
be a just God and a Savior. that God would be able to bring
me and you into His holy presence. That's why. Why hast thou cast
me off? Because of the people He's identified
with. He's identified with a bunch
of rebels. He's identified with a bunch of crooks, a bunch of
thieves, a bunch of murderers. He's identified with them. And
He's got to suffer because of that. What's that old saying? Guilty
by association? He took our sins and our sorrows
and made them His. He became guilty for them. He
became guilty for them. He who knew no sin and never
did no sin was made to be sin and became guilty in our place. Because the innocent can't die.
That's what God says. That's an abomination. If an
innocent man dies in the place of a guilty man, He said that's
an abomination. The guilty man's got to die. Now listen. And remember this, you say, how
is all this? How is He made to be sin? Not
just on paper, but He was truly made to be sin and yet knew no
sin. Well, here's my answer. Here's
the only answer I can give you. Only God can do that. Only God can do that. He's a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. He said in verse 15, I am afflicted
and ready to die from my youth up. Herod tried to kill him when
he was two years old, and from his youth up, listen, from his
youth up, he knew this hour was coming. This was always in front
of him, from his youth up. Youth does not think about these. You take children, they don't
think about dying, they don't think about meeting God, they
don't think about that. But the Lord said, from my youth
up, this has always been in front
of me. And while I suffer thy terrors,
I'm distracted. You ever been hit so hard? pummeled so hard that you were
confused and distraught. I mean, it just idled you. I
was in a boxing match one time in Moundville State Prison, and
that dude hit me and knocked me down. I ain't kidding you. Everything just light. And I
jumped up. I mean, I came up off of that
mat just like I wasn't hit, but I was confused. That ref stopped
and gave me an eight count. If I would have probably been,
he'd have been standing there, I'd have been over here trying to swing at
him. I was so confused. He knocked the daylights out
of me. He ruptured my eardrum. He hit me right there and ruptured
my eardrum. And I was just so, I mean, it
was, I remember how disoriented, that's the best word I was looking
for, disoriented. That's what he's saying here.
While I suffer thy terrors, thy wrath, I'm disoriented. You can
see that in the Garden of Gethsemane. I can't think. We can't imagine how our Lord
suffered in our place. His sufferings were like being
covered over with water. Wave after wave of fierce wrath. Thy fierce wrath goes over me. Thy tears have cut me off. God's
wrath kept coming at Him like water. In verse 17, they came
round about me daily like water. They compassed me about together.
There's one thing I know about water. When you fall into water,
you're wet all over. I mean, it's like air. It's like air. You're just engulfed
in it. That's why he's engulfed in these
flames of God's wrath. It was the most painful experience
for Christ to experience the wrath of God, the separation
from His Father, because that's what hell is, the separation
from God. It's to experience the wrath of God, but to be separated
also from lover and friend. You know, Job said, my breath
is strange to my wife. Love of a friend, he said, hast
thou put from me. You did this. This is of God.
And my acquaintance into darkness. He's got to tread the winepress
of God's wrath alone. Nobody can help him. God put
everybody out of the way. Because he's got to do it by
himself. By himself purged our sins. And this ends in darkness. It ends in darkness. This is
a place we can't go. It's a place we can't go. Our
Lord said this in John 13, 33. He said, Little children, yet
a little while I am with you. You shall seek Me, and as I said
unto the Jews, whether I go, you can't come. So now I say
to you, Two things here. He's going back to the Father,
and they have a ministry to fulfill yet, so they can't go with Him.
But also, He's going to the cross. He's going, so to speak, to hell. He's going to go take the hell
of God's wrath. He's going to take my hell. And
He's saying this, you can't go with Me there. I've got to go
there by Myself. You can't go with Me. I'll come
back and get you. But right now, you can't go with
me. You can't go where I'm about to go. No, no, no, no. He's got to be forsaken of God.
And listen, that's how this psalm ends. And it ends like this to
show us what he went through. What he went through. Lover and
friend hast thou put far from me, and my acquaintance into
darkness. And through all of this, he was faithful. He remained faithful. We'll pick
up now on Psalm 89, which really follows on with this psalm, and
we'll see his mercies. And we'll see that Maschel, Psalm
89, that's the psalm of instruction, which has the same thing as Psalm
88. And Ethan, that's the brother
of Heman. That's his brother. He writes
this. So we'll pick up there. I'm not going to get into that
one. So we'll pick up there next week, Lord willing. I forgot and turned it off. and 34. Be thou my