Psalm 55, verse one says, give
ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not thyself from my supplication. So again, this is usually the
case that when the psalm begins, the first verse, the opening
verse is really a statement of what the entire psalm is about.
So you can see right away, this psalm is a supplication by David
to God. And we'll see more about that
in a moment. Verse two says, attend unto me and hear me. I mourn in my complaint and make
a noise. So his grief was so great that
he was speaking aloud. Verse three, because of the voice
of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked, for
they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. This is not a trivial hatred. This is a hatred of great wrath
upon the psalmist from the enemy here. And it's because of this
that he's experiencing this great need for God to deliver him.
He says, in verse four, describes his suffering. He says, my heart
is sore, pained within me, and the terrors of death are fallen
upon me. So it's not a light thing at
all. It's not a casual trouble. It's not like a mere pain in
his body. This is something that reaches
down into the depths of his heart. And it's as great as the terrors
of death. Verse five, fearfulness and trembling
are come upon me and horror hath overwhelmed me. So he's inundated,
he's overwhelmed like a flood of trouble. And verse six, and
I said, oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I
fly away and be at rest. He desired peace, but he couldn't.
He couldn't have it. Verse seven, lo, then would I
wander far off and remain in the wilderness, Selah. I would
hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest. Now he compares
what he was experiencing from the wicked and their hatred and
their wrath as a storm and tempest, a windy storm and tempest. Verse
nine, destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues. For I have seen
violence and strife in the city. So evidently, this was not just
one person, but an entire city that had come against him. Verse 10, day and night they
go about it upon the walls thereof. Mischief also and sorrow are
in the midst of it. Wickedness is in the midst thereof,
deceit and guile depart not from her streets. So this city sounds
horrible. If I was, if I didn't know the
context here, I would wonder if he wasn't describing a horrible
city like Sodom and Gomorrah or Egypt or one of those cities.
He says in verse 12, for it was not an enemy that reproached
me, then I could have borne it. Neither was it he that hated
me that did magnify himself against me, then I would have hid myself
from him. But it was thou, a man mine equal,
my guide, mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together
and walked unto the house of God in company." So the person
who was troubling him was someone he had an intimate acquaintance
with, someone who acted as his counselor and his guide, a friend. Verse 15, let death seize upon
them and let them go down quick into hell for wickedness is in
their dwellings and among them. As for me, I will call upon God
and the Lord shall save me. Evening and morning and at noon
will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice." There's
confidence that the Lord is going to hear him and he's not going
to stop. He's gonna cry to him all day
long. Evening, morning and at noon.
Verse 18, he hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle
that was against me for there were many with me. God shall
hear and afflict them, even he that abideth of old, Selah. Because
they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. He hath put
forth his hands against such as be at peace with him. He hath
broken his covenant. That's talking about the person
who came against the psalmist. The words of his mouth were smoother
than butter, but war was in his heart. His words were softer
than oil, yet were they drawn swords. cast thy burden upon
the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the
righteous to be moved. But thou, O God, shalt bring
them down into the pit of destruction. Bloody and deceitful men shall
not live out half their days, but I will trust in thee. All
right, so this psalm is fairly long, but you can see that there's
a cry, a supplication being made by the man who is being spoken
of here in this psalm, and that supplication and cry are intense. The trouble he's in is an intense
trouble. It's from an enemy, but not an
ordinary enemy, the worst kind of enemy, because he has been
his friend, and that friendship has been betrayed. He has taken advantage of him,
and because he was a friend, the trouble, the wounds that
he brought to him, were unexpectedly severe. They were not expected,
and he had an inside track to hurt him, and that's what he's
complaining about here. In all the suffering here that
the psalmist experiences, he's complaining to the Lord. Complaining
is not really the right word. He's really expressing in supplications
his great need to be delivered from this wickedness that had
come upon him. Now, understand that this psalm
is speaking here, as you can see, in verse 12. It was not
an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it. Neither
was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me.
But then I would have hid myself. But it was thou, a man mine equal,
my guide and mine acquaintance. So this psalm is talking about
the betrayal by Judas of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it may
be that the historical person in view here was David, who wrote
the psalm, and Ahithophel, his counselor. But regardless of
that, the point is that this psalm was spoken by David as
a prophet And he was speaking as a prophet, the words of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He was expressing in his prophecy
the feelings of Christ because of the sufferings he experienced
by the betrayal of Judah, Judas. OK, now, if you remember in Second
Samuel, twenty three verse one, it says that David was the sweet
psalmist of Israel. He was the anointed. of the Lord,
he was lifted up on high over Israel, and he was given the
place of king over the nation of Israel. And you know also
that the Lord Jesus Christ was called the Son of David, because
he literally was, after the flesh, he was the Son of David. But
all these things taken together, as we've seen in the Psalms before,
teach us that the one speaking here is the prophet David, but
by the Holy Spirit, he's speaking about the son of David, who is
the one who is expressing these things in prophecy. Now, that
means something very significant to us because of that. And I
want to draw some of the conclusions from the outset from this psalm,
because the words of the psalm are lengthy. And I want to give
you an overview, hopefully, of what this is, what the teachings,
the lessons of this psalm are. First of all, notice that this
was inspired by the Spirit of God, and that's true of all of
Scripture. But because it was inspired,
it's Scripture, and because it's God speaking, that's what Scripture
is, God speaking in His written word, what we see here is that
God is telling before it comes to pass what His prophecy is,
and this prophecy is the will of God. God does nothing. Nothing happens but that it is
the will of God. We can think about many examples
of that, but perhaps the easiest one for us to recognize is in
Acts chapter 2, when it says that by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God, the Jews with wicked hands took Christ
and crucified him. Now that was the determinant
counsel and foreknowledge of God. So clearly, the death of
Christ was the will of God. And it was also the will of God
that he die at the hands of wicked men doing wickedly. And I'm just
letting that sink in for a minute because there's so many implications
by that. First of all, God sovereignly
uses everything in the world to accomplish his will, even
the wickedness of wicked men. And this includes all of the
work of Satan and his kingdom. God uses even Satan and his kingdom
to bring about his will. Wicked men do what they want
to do. Satan does, at least what he thinks, is whatever he wants
to do. He gets permission, but men pretty
much do whatever they desire to do, and God has given them
breath and life. It's amazing to think that God
gives men this apparent freedom to do whatever they want, within
a certain boundary, within a certain constraints, and yet they accomplish
his will. It says in the scripture that
even the wrath of man shall praise him, and that's true. And the
remainder of wrath, it goes on to say, thou shalt restrain. So God uses the wickedness of
men. Think of Pharaoh, for example, in Egypt. He did what he wanted
to do, at least he thought. And every time there was a plague,
God sent a plague. Pharaoh at first seemed to soften,
but then hardened his heart. And so we can see how God accomplished
his will. God lifted him up in order to
show his power in Pharaoh. And so that's the first lesson
here. God, it's God's will. It was
God's will from before the foundation of the world that the Lord Jesus
Christ should suffer and that he should suffer at the hands
of wicked men. OK, so that said, it raises a
lot of of thoughts that are that are clear, is that when the Lord
Jesus Christ undertook to save his people from their sins, he
knew that he was going to suffer in order to deliver them, to
save them from their sins. And so when he became a surety
to God for his people, And he said, as it is spoken of in Genesis
43, verses eight and nine, when Judah told Jacob, his father,
I will be surety for Benjamin. I will bring him back to you.
And if I don't, I'll bear the blame forever. That it was another
prophecy of Christ as our surety, who before the world began engaged
with his father, to commit himself as surety for his people to bring
them back to his father and to bear the blame forever in order
to do that. And that's what he did when Judah
stood before Joseph as the governor. and had to answer for Benjamin. Judah pleaded with Joseph, who
represented the governor, the justice, the judgment. He had
the power to keep him as a captive in prison. And Judah pleaded
with Joseph to take him instead of Benjamin. And he said, take
me instead of the lad. Let me abide a bondman to my
Lord instead of him. And let him, let Benjamin, go
up free with his brethren to his father again. And so this
is a wonderful picture of how the Lord Jesus Christ stood as
our surety. But as our surety, he understood
that it was going to cost him his life. And he answered the
justice of God. And what was the answer he gave
to the justice of God? Well, he gave himself. He answered
the justice of God with himself for his people, for his little
brother, his brethren. And so that's what that account
in Genesis is teaching, at least very plainly. And then also in
the book of Philemon, I love this, that's why I mention it
now. The apostle Paul wrote a letter to Philemon And he was a fellow
laborer with Paul in the gospel, but he wrote to Philemon concerning
a slave, a former slave of Philemon named Onesimus. And in that letter
Paul wrote to Philemon, he told Philemon, he said, receive him
as myself, my own bowels. Now, that is such a significant
statement because applied to Christ speaking to his father
concerning his people, he's saying, receive them as me, receive them
as me, as myself. and what moves us to a spine-tingling
adoration and admiration of the Lord Jesus Christ and God our
Father, that they would arrange a surety to stand for us. But
in that engagement, Christ also understood that it was going
to cost him personally. and it was going to cost him
whatever God had predetermined by his determinate counsel and
foreknowledge before the foundation of the world, and that would
include, that would be primarily at the hands of wicked men he
would suffer. Remember, it says in Luke, I
think it is Luke 23, he says that Pilate turned Jesus over
to their will. Now, I say all that as background
here because this psalm deals with the sufferings of Christ
on the account of his betrayal by Judas. And there was another
account that was given like this in scripture that I hadn't considered
until I was studying for this, and it's found in 2 Samuel chapter
3. if you want to take a look at
that. And I won't read the entire account here, but in 2 Samuel
3, perhaps you can remember what happened here. David and King
Saul were enemies. David wasn't Saul's enemy, but
Saul had become David's enemy. In other words, Saul was out
to kill David, but David was not out to hurt Saul. David was
very faithful as a servant to Saul, as a son-in-law, in fact.
But in these two groups, there were two captains. Saul had a
captain named Abner. David had a captain named Joab. And both of these men were extremely
capable warriors. But Joab had a brother named
Asahel, and Asahel could run swiftly. He could run, as scripture
says, as a wild deer could run. He was really quick. And so there
was a skirmish, not a skirmish, it was a battle really between
At the time when King Saul was overthrown in battle, and he
and Jonathan were killed, there was a fight between Abner and
Joab's men. Abner representing Saul's side
of the nation, and Joab representing David and his side, which was
the tribe of Judah and Benjamin. So, Joab and Abner there, in
the book of 1 and 2 Samuel, they come to blows. Their men were
actually doing the fighting, but Asahel, Joab's brother, ran
after Abner. And Abner warned him, he said,
get yourself a spear or a sword or something. You're running
out after me with nothing in your hand. but Asahel wouldn't
do it, he wouldn't turn back. He told him a couple of times,
he still wouldn't do it, so Abner killed him there. And because
Abner killed Asahel, Joab was constantly trying to bring vengeance
on Abner. And so, after a long war between
Abner, or Saul's side, under Abner, the captain, and Joab,
who was fighting David's fight, really, he was David's captain,
After a long time, Abner determined to help David bring the 10 tribes
that were under him to submit themselves to David as the king.
And so David and Abner got together. David trusted Abner to do that. And Abner, in integrity, pledged
to bring those 10 tribes under the submission to David. But
Joab hated Abner so much that he had this wicked intent to
take vengeance himself upon Abner. Joab was a captain in David's
army, so he reported to the king, not to himself. He wasn't allowed
to just willy-nilly go out and kill people. He was doing whatever
he did in the name of his king. But in this case, Abner and David
made peace. Abner pledged to David he was
going to bring the ten tribes under David, and he left David's
presence. And as he was leaving, Joab and
Joab's brother, Abishai, they met Abner, and Joab pretended to be at peace with Abner. In fact, he came to him and he
pulled him to himself to hug or to kiss him. And when he did
that, he took out his sword and he killed him. Okay, so that's
the setting here in 2 Samuel 3. And take a look at verse 30, Verse 31, David said to Joab
and to all the people that were with him, rend your clothes and
gird yourselves with sackcloth and mourn before Abner. And King
David himself followed the bier and they buried Abner in Hebron
and the king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner
and all the people wept. So David was giving honor to
Abner after he died, after Joab had murdered him. In other words,
David was saying, I didn't do this. This was not, this was
a man I held in high regard, and he was a man of integrity.
He was a faithful man to his master, who was Saul. And so,
in verse 33, the king lamented over Abner, and he said this,
notice, in 2 Samuel 3, 33. Died Abner as a fool dieth? Now a fool would die for his
sins. He says in verse 34, thy hands
were not bound, nor thy feet put in fetters. He wasn't legally
in prison for sins, for wickedness that he did. He was free to go. As a man falleth before wicked
men, so fellest thou. and all the people wept again
over him. David is condemning Joab and
his brother for this. Joab killed Abner and it was
wickedness. And the way that he did it was
that he pretended to be someone Abner could trust, but in Abner's
integrity, In his faithfulness to the king now, he embraced
David's captain, and yet David's captain treacherously betrayed
his faithfulness to David by killing Abner. So Joab took advantage
of Abner's integrity and faithfulness to David. even though it was
relatively short-lived, because he had been faithful to King
Saul, now he had turned to be faithful to David. And then in
the last verse, in verse 39 of the same chapter, 2 Samuel 3,
it says, and I am this day weak, though anointed king, and these
men, the sons of Zeruiah, which would be Joab and his brother
Abishai, are too hard for me The Lord shall reward the doer
of evil according to his wickedness. So now in this you can see, you
can hear a man after God's own heart. justifying a man who was killed
in wickedness by another man who did that wickedness, his
own captain, in this case, Joab. And he says, their wickedness
is great, their strength is great. And he says, the Lord will reward
the doer of evil according to his wickedness. So David desired
God to do justly, didn't he? Now, in this same Psalm, in Psalm
55, you see the same principle. A man gains the trust of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And through that trust, because
the Lord Jesus was a man of integrity, of impeccable integrity, and
he was faithful to his friends. Therefore, this man found a way
by being the friend of Christ, of having an inside way of attacking
him that was unequal. among enemies. If you have an
enemy, for example, let's say Goliath. David knew Goliath was
his enemy. He stood and bellowed, bring
me a man and I'll kill him. He knew he was his enemy. David
was fearless against Goliath, wasn't he? All Israel quaked
in their boots. David, in the name of the Lord,
says, I I will kill him, I'll give his body to the birds of
the air, and I'm going to deliver up the entire host of the Philistine
army." David was no chicken. He was emboldened because of
his faith and God strengthened him in this, but you can see
David was not a wimp. It was not a wimp because his
strength was in the Lord. But notice in this psalm, this
is David writing. He says, give ear to my prayer,
O God. Hide not thy face from my supplication.
Attend to me. Hear me. I mourn in my complaint
and make a noise because of the voice of the enemy. because of
the oppression of the wicked, for they cast iniquity upon me,
and in wrath they hate me. My heart is sore pain within
me, the terrors of death are fallen upon me, fearfulness and
trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me."
That doesn't sound like the man who stood before Goliath, does
it? The reason why is because the one who came against him
now has, as it were, like Joab did, he has his trust. And when
Joab comes and puts his arm around Abner and pulls out his sword,
he's not ready. He's not ready for that. And
so it entered into him and took his life. And so David understood
as the prophet now, but much, much more the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God is opening these things to us in these relationships
between men, because we can understand that better, to show us the high
degree of suffering that the betrayal of Judas caused the
Lord Jesus Christ. It was not trivial, even though
we could say, well, he knew it was coming because obviously
he said he was a son of perdition, he hadn't chosen him, he wasn't
clean, he told him what you're going to do, go out and do it
quickly, and so on. All of that is true, and yet
the Lord Jesus Christ also knew he was going to suffer on the
cross. Did that lessen his suffering? Not at all. He submitted to it
in obedience and submission to the will of God. it entered into
his soul. So that's one thing I want you
to see here. First, it was God's will. He
used the wickedness of man to bring this suffering, and it
was God's will that Christ should suffer this way. And the suffering
was deep. It was not trivial because it
was the unexpected attack of a trusted friend. And think about
what this trusted friend did in order to do this. What motivated
him? What motivated a man to be so
wicked as to use the loyalty of Christ towards him as the
way he would gain access to hurt the Lord Jesus Christ unto death.
What would move a man to do that? A complete self-serving motive.
He wanted the silver that they gave him for that. And he was
thinking entirely of his own benefit in a temporal way. He
had no regard for the Lord of glory, did he? And because of
this great wickedness, remember what Jesus said, it had been
better for that man if he had never been born. That makes you
tremble, doesn't it? Now, so we can see something
about this loyalty and the betrayal of loyalty and how great a crime
it is. It's greater than if you just
openly say, I hate you and I'm going to kill you. This betrayal
of loyalty is a greater crime than that. And as I was thinking
about these things, I began to think about how God has given
us relationships in our lives. We have many friends throughout
the course of our lives. And how many times I asked myself
this question, because it came to my mind, how many times have
I spoken something harsh, even behind the back of somebody that
was a friend of mine, in order for me to gain some trivial whatever
I thought I was gaining by doing that through that betrayal of
their loyalty to me. And when I began to think about
that, I realized the terrible nature of taking advantage of
someone's friendship in order and to betray them in order to
gain for ourselves. Maybe it's just something as
simple as showing you're, you know, I'm smarter than them because
of this or I'm more skilled than them because of this or something
like that. Always boasting and even taking
a friend's name or somebody you love dearly and using them in
your wicked intent to exalt yourself or whatever it is. This betrayal
of loyalty is a very, very serious thing. And you can see that in
our own personal relationships between people. But how much
more is it a wicked thing when we are unfaithful and disloyal
to the one whose name is faithful and true? And when we begin to
think about that, then I think we can begin to see why this
Psalm is so significant. Because in this Psalm, the Lord
Jesus Christ is suffering because of the betrayal of Judas. Why? Why was it God's will that Christ
suffer in this way? Well, we've already sort of touched
on it because the betrayal of a friend is the deepest way that
you can suffer But why would God require Christ to suffer
this way? Remember when he gave the Lord's
Supper in the upper room on the night of the last Passover? And
it says it was the same night that he was betrayed. In First
Corinthians chapter 11, it says the same night that he was betrayed,
he took bread broke it and gave it to his disciples and said,
take, eat, this is my body broken for you. And with the same way
with a cup, this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which
is shed for many for the remission of sins. So, but why did God
require that Christ should suffer the betrayal of Judas on that
night? Well, it certainly would accomplish
his arrest, which would bring about his crucifixion, but it
was the pain of the betrayal itself that was deep, deep sorrow
as he expresses it here. The voice of the enemy, my heart
is sore pain within me, terrors of death are falling upon me,
fearfulness, trembling are come upon me, horror has overwhelmed
me. And he says in verse 12, it was
not an enemy that reproached me. I could have borne that.
Neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against
me. Then I could have I would have hid myself from him. If
you're if you're fighting someone with your sword and they go to
stab you, you just dodge out of the way or you you move or
you take your sword and you flick it away. You know, you're ready
for it. You're defending yourself. You
got your shield. You got your sword. But here, you're getting
ready to embrace someone, and Judas comes to Jesus and kisses
him, and then stabs him, you see. That betrayal, that's where
it went deeply into him, but why did God require that? Well,
here's the reason, and I'm pulling now these things together. The
Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed by a friend because we, in our
unfaithfulness, were disloyal to our friend, our God. and our Savior. You see, in order
to save us from our sins, the Lord Jesus Christ had to take
our sins and suffer for them. And it was the will of God that
He suffer that at the hand of wicked men. because we did wickedly
against him. And so he had to suffer wickedness
in his suffering. And when we think about that,
I really think it causes us to step back and sit in silence
and contemplate these things that the Lord Jesus Christ on
the very night when he was betrayed, then took bread, Broke it and
gave to his disciples and the wine of his blood and gave it
to them for the remission of sins because this broken body
and this shed blood was brought about through that betrayal all
the sufferings of Christ were for us and They were because
of our sins. And so we see that here in this
psalm and so So that, I think, is the part
of this that answers the why of this betrayal. Why did the
Lord Jesus Christ, why was he betrayed this night? Well, certainly
it was the will of God, but it was the will of God because of
the sin of our people he had to suffer for. And that sin that
we did against him, which was the most painful, was taking
advantage of his integrity and his faithfulness to us and being
disloyal to him. And that pains me. It pains me. I think the pain to me of betrayal from a trusted friend, that unjust
betrayal from a trusted friend here on earth, that pain is not
as great as the pain I feel by my own betrayal of the Lord Jesus
Christ, my trusted friend who befriended me. What pain that causes when we
consider that, doesn't it? And also, I want to also point this out
since we're looking at this psalm and we're realizing that it has
to be speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ. and his betrayal
by Judas, and how in this he was acting as our surety, suffering
the punishment God determined before the foundation of the
world, a punishment that was from the hands of wicked men,
because we, in our wickedness, sinned against God, and so he
would have to suffer the same thing that we that we deserved. God should have brought the kingdom
of Satan and the kingdom of wicked men to bring upon us the very
same things we brought upon God by our sins. But he brought that
instead upon the Lord Jesus Christ. But as we're thinking about that,
I want you to see here that in this psalm, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in prophecy now, the prophecy of this psalm is speaking about
the prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ in his sufferings. Now,
when we think about a psalm like this, usually when I read it,
I think about trying to apply the prayers to myself so that
I would pray this way. And especially like in verse
15, verse 16, as for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord shall
save me. Evening and morning at noon will
I pray and cry aloud, and he shall hear my voice. I wanna
take that verse, don't you? When I read it, I wanna say,
yeah, I hear that Lord has given me this, now and this, and I
wanna use that at, for me, I will call upon God. The Lord shall
save me. I'll call upon him evening, morning, and noon. And he shall
hear my voice. Don't you think that way when
you read the Psalms? Or like verse 22, cast thy burden upon the
Lord. He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous
to be moved. And so we naturally read the
Psalms and we want to take the words of them and apply them
to ourselves in the first person as an individual appearing before
God. But just as we saw in the betrayal
of Christ, he was suffering as our surety, so also in the prayers
of Christ under his sufferings, his supplications and his prayers
were all part of his intercession for his people. in Isaiah 53
verse 12, he says, he made intercession for the transgressors. Christ made intercession for
the transgressors. That's what this psalm is saying
here. When the Lord Jesus Christ suffered, he suffered what we
deserved. In our place, he answered God
with himself for us, like a surety. He said, take me instead of the
lad. He said, like Paul to Philemon, he said, receive him as myself. If he has wronged you or owes
you aught, put it on my account. That's what it says in Philemon,
verse 17 and 18. So these things are so precious
to us that we sometimes also forget that the prayers of the
Lord Jesus Christ were an intercession by him for us in him. So in his own sufferings, when
he was suffering and praying for God to deliver him, when
he was delivered, it was God's answer to him. His answer was
given to God, his sufferings for his people. God answered
him with his deliverance. And that answer was for him with
his people too. First Corinthians 15, what does
it say? Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
So it was for us. Those sins were not his by his
own doing. They were his because he took
them as our high priest and confessed them upon his own head and bore
them as our surety and substitute. and our covenant head. So he was bearing all the obligations
we owe to God. So that his prayers also were
an intercession that when God heard him, We were heard in him. You see, this, the truth is,
is that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to God in prayer or into
heaven, he doesn't come alone. He comes with his people. One
example, I'll give you two examples of this from the book of Romans
and Romans chapter four says he was delivered for our offenses. OK, that tells you why he was
delivered by God. to betrayal, to beating, to nailing
on the cross. He was delivered for our offenses.
OK, so we know right away that his betrayal was for our offenses.
His stripes were for our offenses in order that we might be healed
and so on. But then it says, he was raised again for our justification
or because of our justification. So that not only did he suffer
for our offenses, but his resurrection also was for us. Not just for
himself, but for us. And so also it says in Romans
8, verse 32, for if God, for he that spared not his own son,
That's God the Father. He didn't spare him, but delivered
him up, delivered him up to suffering and death for us all. How shall
he not with him also freely give us all things? So there's this,
the way that God gives us anything is he gives it to us with Christ.
He delivered him up for us. He did not spare him for us.
And therefore He's going to give us all things with Him. So these
two verses, Romans 4.25 and Romans 8.32, are just examples that
show that whatever Christ suffered, He suffered because of our offenses.
Whatever He obtained, whatever He gained in His resurrection,
He gained for us. And we gain in His life and in
His death, from His life and death. So then, Reading Psalm
55, what we're hearing here is not only the sufferings of Christ
at the hand of a treacherous, cruel, self-serving, wicked betrayer,
who was disloyal to one who was only faithful, who proved unfaithful
to him, even though he had treated him as a friend and a companion,
and taking counsel from him, and all these things. That betrayal
that Christ suffered was because we had betrayed the Lord, and
we have to suffer for our betrayal, but he suffered for us. But also
his prayers to be delivered from that murderous betrayer, where
prayers heard by God and God's answer to Christ in answer to
his sufferings in prayers was an answer for us as well. So
then Psalm 55 is teaching us that our hope, our confidence,
our assurance, our joy and our peace is not so much that God
would hear me cry in my trouble, but that he would hear Christ
cry and his trouble when he suffered with his people for his people.
You see? We were with Him, according to
Romans 6. We were crucified with Him. We were buried with Him,
and we've been raised with Him. You see? So then, Psalm 55 is
all these things together, and I want you to see these things
as we think about this psalm, because it teaches us the powerful
comfort and peace and joy, really the amazing revelation of God
concerning how he saves us by the Lord Jesus Christ. It causes
us to give Him all of the credit in our salvation so that we're
not thinking of what we're going to do or what we did or how God
thinks of our particular prayers so much as we come to God asking
Him to consider the Lord Jesus for us. That's our prayer, isn't
it? Consider Him for me. Paul's letter to Philemon was,
receive him as myself, receive Onesimus as me, Paul said to
Philemon. The Lord Jesus Christ says to
our God and Father, receive him as me, as myself. And if he has
done you wrong and put it on my account, I will repay it.
God will pay his debts. God will pay his debts. He's not going to leave justice
unsatisfied. We want to find how that can
happen. The only way it can happen is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We want God to think of him and
receive me for his sake as a compliment If that's the way Paul asked
Philemon to treat Onesimus, and if that teaches us what Christ
is asking His Father to treat His people, so His people resonate
that truth of the gospel given to them by God with the same
prayer and compliment, Lord, receive Christ for me. Receive
me in Him. Isn't that your prayer? If we
understand that about Psalm 55, then we can stand back and we
can see our Savior working here, working in submission, in obedience
to the will of his Father to suffer for his people in our
place. And what a suffering it is. It's
described here as his heart being sore, pained within him, terrors
of death falling upon him, fearfulness and trembling are come upon him,
horror overwhelmed him. I want to point out one more
thing before we close here tonight. It says in verse 12, It was not
an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it. Neither
was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me.
Then I would have hid myself from him. But it was thou, a
man mine equal, my guide and mine acquaintance. We took sweet
counsel together and walked into the house of God in company.
Now, this is clearly speaking about Judas, isn't it? But who
was it that determined that Judas should be allowed to so hurt
the Lord Jesus Christ in this way, but God the Father? It pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement, the beatings
for our peace with God came upon him, and with his stripes we
were healed. What precious words are those
from Isaiah 53 verse 5? So he took our sorrows, he took
our sins as sicknesses, and he was plagued with them. That's
what Isaiah 53 verse 4 is teaching. so that these things are given
to us as Christ's sufferings. But when you read this verse
here and realize that it was the Lord, his God, who determined
that he should suffer at the hand of Judas, his friend, then
we realize something even higher. We realize that his God and father
had delivered him up. And as it says in Romans 8, 32,
he did not spare his son, but delivered him up for us all.
Now, when you think about that, Think about this, Psalm 22, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? You see? So the sufferings
of Christ, when we think about the betrayal by a trusted friend
and the pain that that causes, how much more deep does the pain
go when it was God himself who the Lord Jesus Christ prays to
when he says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But
we can't really enter into that anymore, I don't think, than
just reading the verse and closing the book and asking the Lord,
what does that mean, really? Because it's way beyond our understanding. Well, we know what it's like
to be abandoned by someone that you've trusted or loved or something
like that. Maybe a friend, maybe a parent,
maybe somebody else has treated you that way. You get a taste
of it. But the Lord Jesus Christ from eternity was face to face
with his Father. And that's when he cried, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That is unbelievable, isn't
it? That is incredible. But look
at the last words of this psalm, the last verse. He says, In verse
23, thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction.
Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days,
notice, but I will trust in thee. Even though all of this came
upon him, what did he say? I'm gonna find someone else to
trust because it's not working. No, not at all. There wasn't
even a temptation for that. Like David of old, he said, given
all the options, I say, let me fall into the hands of God, for
with him there's mercy. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who really said that when he says, I trust in him. Even
though God has forsaken me, I still trust him. May God give us that
grace to trust the Lord no matter what. When it says the mountain
shall depart and the hill shall be removed, but my kindness shall
not depart from me, from thee, saith the Lord thy God. So that's
Isaiah 54 10. So the Lord promises us we are
going to have serious, serious things happening to us in our
lives, over the course of our lives, and the world itself will
be in upheaval. And yet, he says, I won't depart. I won't depart from you. I will
never leave you, never forsake you. No, never, never. So that you can boldly say, the
Lord is my helper. The Lord is my helper. I will
not fear what man shall do to me. That's what Christ did. He
trusted in the Lord. He knew that he could trust his
God. He was holy. In fact, that's
what it says in Psalm 22, verse 3, but thou art holy. He was holy. He would do right.
He was merciful. He had given him a promise. All
these things. He was taking his word as his
foundation. And he didn't trust his he didn't
put his confidence or allow his fears to overwhelm him. He said,
I'm going to trust the Lord. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your great mercy to us that you would save us by the Lord
Jesus Christ, who out of such great love, in submission of
obedience unparalleled in all of eternity in all of the universe
that he would so submit to you in obedience unto death taking
our sins those who had offended him and betrayed him in our hearts
and with our mouths and with our actions and has taken our
unfaithfulness to himself and suffered at the hand of an unfaithful
friend. And this unfaithful friend is
but just a shadow of the true forsaking of our Savior that
he experienced on the cross when he suffered for our sins, when
the sun was darkened and there was no light and he cried from
the cross. and his sufferings were heard.
Our sin was put away. God answered him, raised him
from the dead. And in him, we also are raised
and received an answer from God. We ask you, Lord, that you would
find us in the Lord Jesus Christ, that all of our prayers, all
of our supplications and all of our sins would be carried
by him and heard in his prayers. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.