Psalm 22. I titled the message, Why? Why? My God, my God, why? Why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping
me? And from the words of my Roaring,
it sounded like a wounded animal. As it's dying, it's roaring. I remember one time watching
on the outdoor channel, a bear was shot. A guy was bear hunting,
shot a bear. And you could hear that bear
over in the woods, roaring. before it died, it was just roaring
over there. I thought, wow, what a weird, what a awful sound it
was making. And our Lord here said, why are
you so far from the words of my roaring? Like that of a wounded
animal. This psalm starts out with a
question and it needs an answer. Here is a man who knew no sin, yet he was forsaken of God. Here is a man who trusted God
perfectly, yet he was forsaken of God. Here is a man that it said about
him, he went about doing good. He did nothing but good. And
yet he's forsaken, completely now, completely forsaken of God,
left alone. Someone said, hell is to be forsaken
of God. To be forsaken of God. And we have the answer. We have
it throughout the scriptures. And we know this, he's forsaken
of God because of who he is, the substitute. This is the ram
caught in the thicket. Remember Isaac laying on that
altar? This is the ram caught in the thicket. This is the substitute. And he's forsaken of God because
of who he represents, a bunch of God-hating sinners. sinful
men and women, chosen of God, given to Him to redeem. You know, whenever I get to thinking
pretty good about myself, I just need to read this Psalm again
and be reminded of what it took to save me. to save me from my
sins, to bring me before God, to present me spotless and holy
before God, this is what it took. It took the forsaking of the
Son of God. It took Martin Luther I heard Henry tell this story
when he was preaching on this once. He said, and this was supposedly
told by his wife, Martin Luther's wife, said for hours he had looked
at this psalm. And then he stood up and he was,
I guess he was such a expressive person. He stood up and he said,
who can understand God forsaking God? God forsaking God. In Isaiah 53, 9 and 10, listen
to this. It says, He made His grave with
the wicked and with the rich in His death, because He had
done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet
it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, to torment Him, put Him
through torment. He hath put Him to grief, when
thou shalt make His soul is pure, holy soul, an offering
for sin. My sin, your sin, we who believe,
and for a sin of a multitude of sinners that God chose before
the world began, his soul was made an offering for sin. He
shall see his seed. He shall see the ones he died
for. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in his hand. That's what's going on right
now. The pleasure of the Lord is prospering in the hands of
the Lord Jesus Christ. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping
me and from the words of my ruin? This Psalm starts out with, and
this jumped out at me when I was looking at it, it starts out
with ownership. My God, my God. Our Lord never
let go of God being his God. This should be encouraging to
us, and it's an example to us in times of trouble, when we
go through trouble. And we'll never go through trouble like
this trouble. Never. But he never let go of God being
his God, even in the face of his worst suffering, he never
left God. My God, my God. He always had
a perfect relationship with God. But when our Lord was made sin
for us, God turned his back on him. God forsook him and left
him hanging there on that cross. Without mercy, without mercy,
without kindness, God took out His wrath on him. He took out
His justice on him. He says here, He said, I cried
in the daytime, and I got no answer. And in the night season,
our Lord was never silent, though He got no answer. Here he's our example in prayer
under trouble, in trial. He said, I pray during the day,
all day, pray at night, during the night season, and I receive
no answer. Always casting my care upon my
Father. Always doing so. What an example
we have in Christ praying in such a time of trouble. The worse
it got for him, the more he prayed. The more he prayed. His faith
would shine brighter as the night grew darker. I tell you what,
where there is true faith, that's what will happen. It'll shine
brighter as the night grows darker. And it gives us here the reason
he was forsaken. He said, but thou art holy. He
justifies His Father. He justifies God. In His actions,
He justifies God. Thou art holy. He doesn't say,
Thou art unjust. Thou art unkind. I don't understand
why you're doing this. He says, I know this. You are
holy. You're holy. When Christ was
made sin for us, God could not and would not look upon Him with
favor. The Scripture says, He is of
purer eyes than to behold iniquity. And our Lord here, He justifies
God's dealing with Him. He never charges God with folly. He finds no fault with His God. How often do we find fault with
God in trouble? There is no way to put into words
the suffering that's going on here. But he never finds fault
with God. He says, "...Thou art holy."
God is never at fault in any of His actions. He is holy in
all His works. He is holy in all His dealings
with us. If He takes away everything we have, He is holy. He is holy. He is right. What He does is
right. He can do no wrong. And this
is what our Lord does. He said, why have you forsaken
me? Why are you so far from helping
me in the words of my roaring? I cry in the daytime, in the
nighttime, I'm not silent. But I know this, thou art holy. Thou art holy. And then in verse
4, He identifies with His brethren. And I think he draws strength
and courage from this. He says, "...our fathers trusted
in thee..." Notice how he identifies himself with the fathers. Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob. Our father's trusted in that
he takes courage in the fact that God delivered them when
they cried. You know, when I read the scriptures,
and I know you do this, when you read the scriptures and you
read where God delivered David or one of the old prophets or
one of his children, when he delivered them, it's encouraging
because you know he's going to do the same for you. God has no favorite children.
He doesn't play favor. Scripture says He's no respecter
of persons. So what He's done for one, He
will do for the other. He says, our fathers trusted
in thee, and you delivered them. Noah, Jonah, Abraham, Isaac,
they trusted, and you delivered them. And He'll deliver us too. And the Lord took courage from
that. He knew. Now this is the man crying. This
is the God man. This is a mystery. But here's
a man. He's taking encouragement in
the fact that His God, my God, is their God. And He delivered
them and He'll deliver me too. He's taking courage from this.
They cried unto thee and were delivered, they trusted in thee,
and they were not ashamed, they were not confounded, they were
not put to shame by their faith and hope in God. They trusted
you and you delivered them. It says in Isaiah 50 verse 7,
For the Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded,
therefore have I set my face like a flint, That's what it
says in the gospel too, doesn't it? It says that about Christ,
He set His face like a flint to go to Jerusalem. Here it is
in Isaiah 51, verse 7. He said, Therefore have I set
my face like a flint, I know that I shall not be ashamed. I know I'll not be ashamed. I
know that when, and I know this, I know that when this life is
over, that all who believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ will not be confounded, they will not be put to shame. In fact, they will receive far
more than they ever expected. As the Queen of Sheba said, the
half has not yet been told. Three times he says, they trusted,
they trusted, they trusted. He's drawing encouragement from
this. And then he gives us, in verse
six, his humiliation. But I, And it says, I am a worm,
but am is in italics, but I, a worm. Or we can say it like
this, but the I am became a worm. What a mystery, what a mystery. But I am a worm and no man, a
reproach of men and despised of the people. He is a worm like
Jacob, yet less than Jacob. Our Lord never lifted Himself
above His brethren. Jacob, thou worm, Jacob. And
then when the Lord speaks of Himself being a worm, and He
said, but I'm less than a worm. I'm a worm and no man. No man. He sets Himself below His brethren
by saying, and no man. He sets Himself below us. The Scripture says in Isaiah
52, 14, as many were astonished at thee, his visage was so marred
more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. He
didn't even look human hanging on the cross. That's how mutilated
he was. He said, no man, he didn't even
look human. He was so mutilated. And the
people, he says, despise me. Don't be fooled by people. They despise the real Jesus Christ. They despise the real one. He
says, they despise me. He went about doing good. You
know how many of those people he fed? He fed multitudes, didn't
he? A multitude of 5,000 men plus
women and children. He did that twice. Twice. And they turned around and they
despised him. They were part of that group.
They were part of that group that despised him. Not only do
they despise me, they laugh at me. They mock me. They mock my
faith in thee. He believed in God. He trusted
God. Let's see if God will deliver him. Let's see if God will have
him. He said he's a son of God. Let's see if he is. And they wagged their head in
disbelief. Who does he think he is? This
is the Messiah? This is the King of Israel? They
wag their head in disbelief. How pitiful. How pitiful that
man. They didn't believe him to be
the Son of God. They didn't believe him to be the Messiah. They mocked
his faith. They mocked everything about
him. But he takes courage. He still,
he takes courage. Look here in verse nine, but
thou art he that took me out of my mother's womb, out of the
womb. Thou didst make me to hope when
I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon you from birth.
I was cast upon you from my mother's belly. You are the one who formed
me. You're the one who made me. You're the one who made me in
my mother's belly and took me from the womb. You see, Joseph
had no part in that. He said, you made me, you made
me, you formed me in my mother's belly. The seed of Adam had nothing
to do with the birth of the Lord Jesus, or the conception of the
Lord Jesus Christ, nothing. He was conceived of the Holy
Spirit. A body, a body hast thou prepared me. A body that He would
inhabit. A body that God Almighty would
inhabit and that He would take to the cross and sacrifice on
our behalf. Our God took upon Himself flesh
and went to the cross and suffered His own justice. Now brother, that gives me encouragement
that God's going to save me. If He died for me, I read this
today and I thought, if He did this for me, there is no way
in the world that I'm not going to be saved. There's no way that the Son of
God can come into this world and suffer such a death, suffer
at the hands of justice, and that person not be saved for
whom He did it? Someone was talking to my brother
the other day, and he was telling him, he said, he didn't believe
that God chose a people. He said, I don't believe that.
He said, I believe we all have a choice to make. Well, first of all, what's the
choice? That you're going to be lost
or saved? You're already lost. He that believes not, the condemnation
of God is already hanging over his head. He's condemned already. But I was telling my brother,
I said, you're going to tell me that Christ did all this and
then the result, the final result is left up to me and you? You can't be serious. God is
a God of wisdom, infinite wisdom, unmeasured. It's infinite wisdom.
It can't be measured. To do this to his son? and they
leave it up to me, the final result? That's just ludicrous. If I did this to one of my sons,
for you, you're going to be saved. Like it or not, you're going
to be saved. But what you have to understand,
here's what they don't understand, is what happened at the cross.
Justice was satisfied. and justice was satisfied on
behalf of a multitude of sinners. Salvation is not Jesus Christ
dying for sin and then throwing it out there like chicken feed
and whoever wants to pick it up can have it. Salvation is Jesus Christ dying
in my stead, taking my sins, putting them away. He answered the demands of justice That's what happened at Calvary? And I just believe I have a choice. You made your choice a long time
ago. And if the Lord doesn't save
us, we're going to be lost. If he doesn't choose us, we're
going to be lost, because we'll never choose him. Oh, you're the ones who formed
me in my mother's belly and took me from the womb. I'm yours from
the beginning. And so is every one of you who
believe. Everyone. Everyone that believes.
God chose you. God made you. Read Psalm 100. Thou hast made us and not we
ourselves. We are the sheep of thy pasture. From His birth, He was called
a holy child. He was called a holy child from
birth. Born without sin. No other child has come into
this world born without sin. It's not that they're born without
sin and at a certain age they become a sinner. I don't think
so. We are born sinners. Born in sin and shapen in iniquity,
every one of us, except Jesus Christ. The angel called him that holy
thing. That holy thing. He takes courage in the fact
that God is the one who formed him. That's why he said, my God,
my God. You're my God. You're the one
who made me. You're my Creator. You're my Father. And this being
so, 11 through 13, this being so, be not far from me. Oh, be
not far from me. Be by my side as I go through
this. The enemy has encircled me. Have
you ever been in such trouble you feel like you're drowning,
like you're in water? The enemy has encircled me. It's
like you go down in the water, water encircles you. It just engulfs you. It just
wraps you about. Our Lord said, the enemy, they've
encircled me. Many bulls have compassed me,
strong bulls of Bashan. These are the leaders of Israel.
These are the ones who should have said, this is the Christ. They beset me round, they gaped
upon me with their mouth, they've opened their mouths against me
like a ravening and a roaring lion, they're ripping me apart
with their teeth, with their mouth, with their tongues, with
their speech, they're ripping me apart. Don't you think he
felt this? This is one who is holy. This
is one who knew no sin. And here they are just ripping
at Him, gnashing at Him with those teeth, their language and
their tongue, and He feels it. He feels it. And He's going to give us a description
here of His suffering physically. Our Lord suffered in body, soul,
and spirit, because you and I have sinned in body, soul, and spirit. And he suffered in body, soul,
and spirit. His whole being suffered the wrath of God. He suffered the wrath of God, the
hatred of Satan, and the hatred of men. He says, I am poured out like
water. I am poured out like water. My strength is poured out like
water. And all my bones are out of joint. And my heart is like
wax, it's melted in the midst of my bowels. You know what,
you take heat and you melt wax and it just runs from that heat. He's saying from the heat of
God's wrath, from the heat of this situation he's in, he said,
my heart, and I think he's here, you ever just lose heart? If
you ever do something and you're going at it and you're going
at it, it just seems like everything keeps going the other way. He said, my heart is like wax.
It's just, why? Why have you forsaken me? Why
are you so far from helping me? And from the words of my roaring.
And the enemy has encircled me. They've closed in on me. The
dogs have closed in on me. They're tearing at me. My strength
is dried up like a pot shirt. My tongue cleaved to my jaws.
That was brought me into the dust of death. Here we see his
unresisted sufferings. He never resisted in any way,
shape, or form. Note the detail he uses. Poured
out like water, emptied out. His bones dislocated, not broken,
but dislocated. They say it's from where they
just took him across. They nailed him to the cross
and they just dropped it in the ground. And when they dropped
it in the ground, his bones came out of socket. His shoulders
just popped out of socket. This is something that really
happened. This really happened. His strength, he says, was gone.
He said, my strength is gone. He couldn't move. I don't believe
he got to the point where he couldn't move one muscle anymore. You know, he's just so weak.
He's a man. He's a man. He's a real man. And he's saying, my strength
is gone. And his tongue stuck to the roof
of his mouth from excessive thirst. What was that rich man cried
in hell for Abraham to do? He said, let him take his finger
and touch the tip of my tongue with water. He's dying of thirst. And you and I will never taste
that. You and I will never experience that kind of thirst. And notice here, he says, thou
hast brought me into the dust of death. But notice who brought
him to the dust of death. He said, thou hast brought me. This is of God. This is of God. Outwardly, it looks like it's
a bunch of rebels that have turned loose on him. This is of God. Our salvation is of God. All
the suffering that he did, that he went through, is of God. And
so that he might save us from our sins. brought into the dust of death.
From dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return." He experienced
the curse. Listen, Jesus Christ knew the
full agony of death. Now He knew the full agony of
death. And He says, they're closing
in on me. This is true dying right here. This is true dying.
This is true death right here. Let us not glamorize death caused
by sin. For the dogs, he says, have encompassed
me, they've surrounded me. You've seen dogs surround its
prey. And you notice here how when he speaks of the leaders
of Israel and the people, he speaks of them as beasts. Bulls
of bastion, lions, dogs. This is what I'm dealing with.
This is what human nature is. The dogs have got me. They're
tearing me. They're nailing me to a cursed
tree. And yet there's no help. There's
no help in sight. He said they've got a hold of
me. They've got me. My bones are sticking out so
that I can count them. He was so emaciated from fasting
and suffering that he could actually count his bones. But also something
else I never thought of before. He said my bones, my bones are
sticking out or my bones, I can count all my bones, I can tell
all my bones. That's because he's hanging there
naked. And he can look down and he can see his bones sticking
out through his skin. He could see them, count them. They pierced my hands and my
feet. My bones are sticking out. I can count them all. And they
sit there and they stare at my naked body. Their eyes, the way he's saying
it, their eyes are feasting on me. Their eyes are feasting. You
ever look at a good meal and you're going, Oh, well, I can't
wait to sit down and eat. Their eyes are feasting on my
suffering. They literally take pleasure
in my pain. There's actually a medical term
for that, where people take pleasure in someone else's pain. And he's
saying here, they take pleasure in my suffering, my pain. That's why He said in one place,
"...is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Is there any
sorrow like My sorrow?" Even, listen, even in their hatred,
even in their scorn, their mocking, their hatred, in verse 18, they
are fulfilling the Scripture. They don't even know it. They
part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. They fulfill the scriptures.
That happened when our Lord was crucified. The scripture says,
the wrath of man shall praise thee and the rest I shall restrain. The rest I shall restrain. Now, in verse 19-21, just when
it looks the darkest, faith rises to shine once again. Once again,
it's like he gets the strength through faith to look once again,
and he says, Be not far from me, O Lord, my strength. He recognizes
that his God is carrying him through this. He recognizes that.
He reckoned, hurry to my help, save me from the power of the
lion's mouth. Once again, he rises in faith
and prays. Boy, to be able to pray in such
a dark hour, to be able to hold up God's faithfulness and to
have that kind of hope in God that he's gonna deliver, no matter
how dark the hour is, he's coming, he's gonna deliver. For thou hast heard me." See?
There's faith. There it is. Thou hast heard
me from the horn to the unicorn. Faith ultimately wins the day.
In all this darkness, in all this gloom, he says, you heard
me. You've heard me. and his thoughts now return to
his brethren for whom he's doing all this. He says in verse 22,
I'll wind this up, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. He's
speaking as if it's already done. He's speaking of victory here
already. You know, just before this, he
was talking about they pierce my hands and my feet, they dig.
And he's saying they dig into my hands and my feet. They dig
into them. And now he says, I will declare
thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation
will I praise thee. I will preach and I will praise
you in the midst of the church. Faith takes hold of the almighty
and vows to declare the name of the Lord to you and me. And he identifies with his church
and his sufferings and in his triumph over death. I will declare thy name unto
my brethren. In the midst of the congregation will I praise
thee. Yet ye that fear the Lord," this includes Jews and Gentiles. He looks beyond just the Jews
there. This is Jews and Gentiles. All
you that fear the Lord, praise Him because this is for you.
What is happening right here is for you. Praise Him. We sing
a song, praise Him, praise Him. That's what he's saying. Praise
Him. All ye the seed of Jacob, all the elect of God, glorify
Him, give unto Him the glory that's due unto His name, and
fear Him, give Him reverent fear, fear that He deserves, fear of
respect, all the seed of Israel. For He hath not despised, nor
abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. He's not despised
you. Christ said, He's not despised
my afflictions. He's not turned His back. He's coming. Yeah, He turned
His back for a little while, but just a little while. Here's good reason to praise
Him. Never was a man so afflicted as our Savior, in body and soul. And yet He finds reason to praise
God. He finds reason to praise God. My praise shall be of thee in
the great congregation." That's what's going on now. If I'm standing
here preaching, and I pray by the grace of God in the Spirit
of Christ, you know, if a man's truly preaching under the power
of the Spirit, he's preaching in the Spirit of Christ. And
he says, I will praise thee, my praise shall be of thee in
the great congregation, the whole church. I'll pay my vows before
them that fear Him." I'll pay my vows. There was a covenant
of grace made between the Father and the Son, and the Son vowed
to bring us home. He vowed to be our surety. And He's going to make good on
it. He's going to make good on it. The meek shall eat and be satisfied. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth." This is the meek. This is humble.
These are the ones who've been humbled. The meek here are those
who really know what it is to be humble. They shall eat and
be satisfied. They shall what? Eat what? Of the Lamb. They shall feed
on Jesus Christ. Is Christ enough for you? Is
the Lord Jesus Christ enough for us? I'm satisfied, you're satisfied,
aren't we? The meek eatin' and they're satisfied with the Lord.
They'll praise the Lord to seek Him. Your heart shall live forever. All the ends of the world shall
remember and turn to the Lord. The gospel's gonna go through
all the world, through every tongue, tribe, and kindred, and
nation under heaven. God has a people. God has a people
for whom Jesus Christ was forsaken for. And the kingdom is the Lord's,
it's all His. He's the governor among the nations.
Who's governing the world right now? The Lord, Jehovah. He's governing
the nations. They're all His. And all they
that be fed upon the earth shall eat and worship, and all they
that go down to the dust shall bow before Him. God's going to
save rich and poor. He's going to save all kinds.
All kinds are going to worship Him. And a seed is going to serve
Him. It's going to be counted to the
Lord for a generation. And they're going to come and they shall
come and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born. That's going on today. And if
He doesn't come tomorrow or next week or next year or next hundred
years, Preaching's still gonna go on. We're still gonna declare
His righteousness as our righteousness, and here's what we're gonna declare,
that He has done this. He's done this. Salvation's of
the Lord. This is our substitute, the Lord
Jesus Christ dying on Calvary's tree. This is Him. He's the one that says, he's
the one who cried, it is finished. That's what it means that he
had done this, it is finished. And that's the best way to end
this song. It is finished. All right.