Psalm 38, as we saw last time,
can be understood as the prayer of a man who is a sinner, confessing
his sins to God. And we see this, first of all,
in David. Obviously, David was just a man,
and he was a sinful man at that. He did many things that the Bible
records were wrong, two of which that come to mind are his matter
with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah the Hittite and his
cover-up of all that. But then also there were other
things that he did wrong, such as the time when he numbered
the people of Israel and God sent a destroying angel to kill,
I think, 70,000 in Jerusalem before God withheld the hand
of the angel and didn't bring any more destruction. So those
are just a couple of things, but David confesses his sin in
Psalm 32, in Psalm 51, and here in this psalm, and in other psalms
as well, throughout the psalms. But in this psalm, we especially
see it, and this gives us a great comfort and encouragement as
sinners. All of us have sinned, there's
no question about that. Sometimes we get the sense from
religious people that there is an event that occurs in the life
of God's people. where they are converted, and
after their conversion, they pretty much do not sin anymore.
They always look back on that conversion experience, and the
gospel they heard then is important, but it's nothing that we have
to really talk about very often. We're always striving to do better,
to live the Christian life, and we focus on all the things that
a believer does, such as prayer and reading the Bible and giving
and helping others, and that really becomes the focus of all
the teaching. But that's not the case with
the believer, and that's why we see this in Psalm 38. Here
we have a man who confesses his sin, and this is encouraging
to a sinner. When we read the prayers of a
sinner in the Scripture, such as in Luke 18, Verse 13, where
the publican said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. We might think
that that prayer was something that this man, this publican,
only prayed once. But I seriously doubt that. Don't
you find it, in your own experience, to be necessary to constantly
be going to God through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? And
isn't that what it says in scripture that we are doing when we eat? the broken body and drink the
wine which represents his shed blood for us. that this is our
life. Didn't Jesus say that God has
given him to be the bread of life to his people that they
eat and drink, that is they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for
their life. And then Jesus said, if any man eat my flesh and drink
my blood that he dwells in me and I in him. And that those
words eating and drinking are not in the past, as an experience
that happened once, but a present ongoing experience. Believing
Christ is not a past experience. Believing Christ is a daily experience. And so that's one of the reasons
this psalm is especially important and encouraging to us, because
when we have sinned, and when do we not sin? I mean, we might
ask the question, this psalm talks about a sinner confessing
his sin to God as if that's a rare thing. But when is sin ever rare? We may find that at times our
sin is especially acute. And then it becomes really important
to us to know God's grace to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what this psalm is especially doing for God's people. So when
we find ourselves in that frame of mind, then we would flee to
the words God has given here by the Holy Spirit of God. to
teach us that there is hope for sinners, and that sinners are
given this as warrant to come to God and pray this, looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ. So for those reasons, this psalm
is very important. But also, and more importantly,
what we see in this psalm is really a revelation of what happened
on the cross when the Lord Jesus Christ bore the sins of His people. And this is the other part I
think that religion completely misses, is that the scriptures
were given to set forth Christ and Him crucified evidently.
That's what it says in Galatians 3, chapter 3, verse 1, that Christ
has been evidently set forth, crucified among you. The apostle
Paul said, I have determined not to know anything among you,
Corinthians, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And we could
go on and on quoting those kinds of scriptures. And so that's
the warrant from God himself, but we as sinners find it that
there's a resonance. There's this matter of our sin
that heightens what's all important to God, which is the issue of
dealing with our sin in his son. And so this psalm is important
because it preaches to us Christ and him crucified. Now there's
nothing more important to God and there's nothing more important
to a sinner. So we see that the sinner in
all of the nakedness of his need and the desperation of his ruin
and the Savior in all the plentitude of his grace and all sufficiency
of his salvation are brought together in this psalm and in
the gospel. And it's that bringing together
of the sinner and his need and the Savior and the plentitude
of His grace that causes us, gives us the greatest comfort
and encouragement. In fact, it causes us to actually,
without realizing it until it happens when we hear the gospel,
our eyes are taken away from our own deplorable condition
and helplessness and all of our doubts and they're fastened upon
the Lord Jesus Christ so that when we see him in the gospel,
suddenly we remember all of the truth of God's word is brought
to bear again upon our memory and we're brought back again
to see Christ, to behold Him and to look to Him and call upon
Him to be for us all that He says He is for His people here
in this psalm. So that's why this psalm is so
important. And you know that that's the
true. And last time we tried to cover the out the outline
and the highlights of this psalm by considering these things as
a prayer given by God to us as sinners based on the fact that
Christ bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And those words
that we quote so often, I hope they never become old to us,
that they never become just syllables with sounds in our head, and
they don't actually penetrate, that they really do penetrate
in our heart. When it says, who his own self
bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead
to sins, dying with him, should live under righteousness by whose
stripes you were healed. Now that is a fantastic, unbelievably
fantastic promise of God to sinners. I often walk around and wonder,
you know, how dull, spiritually dull I am and how ill-equipped
I am to do anything good for anybody. But then I'm reminded
that I'm reminded of these things that we're talking about right
now. I'm reminded of my own inadequacies, but those things don't matter.
The point here is that we're looking to Christ, isn't it?
It's not about how greatly I do as a Christian. It's how greatly
Christ did. He's the one that we believe.
He's the one we look to. So that's why this psalm is so
dear to us. So let's read this again as we
look together in Psalm 38. It says in verse one, O Lord,
rebuke me not in thy wrath. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ, is
if we understand this psalm, which is proper that we do, if
we understand this psalm as a psalm given by a man who was David
in scripture, and we might be asking ourselves the question,
what does this psalm mean? And as we read it from David
as a sinner, we can very easily get wrapped up in that and think
of it only as David as a man. But the great mystery of the
gospel here is that the man who is confessing his sins in this
psalm, here's the mystery. That man is a godly man. He's the man in this same psalm
who says in verse, I think it's verse 18, he says, I follow the thing that is good,
that good is, or in the King James Version, if you look at
verse 20, Psalm 38 verse 20, he says, they also that render
evil for good are mine adversaries, because I follow the thing that
good is. Now, you probably know this,
but in the King James Version, words in italics, mean words
that were put there by the translators to help smooth out the precise
word-for-word translation that they strived to achieve. So rather
than giving us the translation in its formal equivalence, as
they say, In this verse, they tried to add these italicized
words to make it easier to understand. But really, in this verse, those
italicized words actually make it more confusing. If you take
them out, it just says, I follow good. Isn't that simple? Why would you confound things
with that? If I talked to the translators, I would ask them,
but they're not here to talk to. The point is, is that Christ
is the only one who follows good. He said to the rich young ruler,
there is none good but God. Romans 3 says about all men born
to Adam, they have all gone out of the way. That's not good.
And someone might argue, well, the believer, though, follows
good. And you can say that that's true, but what is the good that
he follows but Christ, the one who is the righteous? So we never
boast in our own goodness. We don't hold it up for people
to observe. We don't point others to ourselves,
we point others to Christ. That is what God has given us,
and what a blessed thing that is to do. So the point here is
that the one who is confessing his sin in this psalm is the
one who follows good, and that seems to be a great mystery to
me. That's why this psalm necessarily points to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Only He is good, and yet He bore our sins. He never did any sin. He knew no sin. He loved righteousness. He hated iniquity. And in Him
is no sin. And yet, Isaiah 53, He was wounded
for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. He bore the sins
of many, and He made intercession for the transgressors. That's
Isaiah 53. That's the revelation that explains
this Psalm to us. Christ bore our sin. He, according
to 2 Corinthians 5.21, He was made sin for us who knew no sin.
because he knew no sin, and therefore we are made the righteousness
of God in him. That verse explains this psalm. And so does 1 Peter 2.24, which
says, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree. Okay, so there's many other verses.
The gospel essentially is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,
that he was buried, that he rose again the third day according
to the scriptures. And how that is explained here
in this psalm. This is Christ's experience on
the cross. This is what he felt This is
how the oppression of our sins bore down upon him under the
hand of God, knowing what these sins were against God. He alone
knew that. And even though David felt, because
of his own personal sin, and every believer does, we feel
estranged from God. We feel God is not helping us. We feel forsaken. We feel alone. All the things expressed in this
psalm, and yet the Lord Jesus Christ, preeminently, felt these
things in a way that none of us could ever feel them, and
he actually felt the wrath of God. We might think we know it,
but no, he actually did, and that's what verse one is saying.
Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot
displeasure. I'm sorry, not in Isaiah, but
in Psalm 90, In Psalm chapter 90, the Song of Moses, as it's
called. Let me read this verse to you
in Psalm 90. It came to me as I was studying today. Psalm 90,
he says, verse 11, who knoweth the power
of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, so
is thy wrath. Who knows the power of God's
anger? And how are we going to know His wrath? Well, according
to Scripture, the Lord Jesus Christ said, by the Spirit of
God, in truth, without hyperbole, without exaggeration, without
overstating it, in truth, He said this, O Lord, rebuke me
not in thy wrath. Neither chasten me in thy hot
displeasure, for thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand
presseth me sore." Presseth me sore. Doesn't that convey or
conjure up the image of a wine press where they squeeze the
grapes and press out the wine, the juice from the grapes? And
isn't that what Gethsemane was? The pressing, it was the oil,
the olive oil was pressed out, as it were. The wine, Christ's
blood was pressed out, as it were, when he sweat great drops
of blood. In fact, let's look at that in
Matthew 26 so that we get this sense directly from his own experience
while he was under this affliction in his soul in Matthew 26 and
verse 36. He says, Then cometh Jesus with
them unto a place called Gethsemane. And I think that means the place
of, well, I can't remember exactly. It might mean the place of the
skull, but I forgot. But anyway, a place called Gethsemane. And
saith to his disciples, sit ye here while I go and pray yonder. Why does the son of God need
to pray? Because he's the son of man.
He's living as a man for men. He's doing everything as a man
for us people. And he's not only doing it on
their behalf, but he's doing it as one with them. But we read
on, he said, sit ye here while I go and pray yonder. And he
took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to
be sorrowful. and very heavy. Now those words
are directly in this Psalm, Psalm 38. Isaiah 53 says he was a man
of sorrows. But in Matthew 26, verse 38,
he goes on, he says, then saith he to them, to Peter, James,
and John, he said, my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto
death, tarry ye here and watch with me. My soul. His whole person
as a man, his body and soul, sorrow had weighed down upon
him so much so that he felt as if he was going to die right
there. That's what this is saying here.
He's sorrowful, very heavy, exceeding sorrowful, my soul is, even unto
death, and stay here and watch with me. Now when we read Psalm
38, you can just superimpose those words over the top of it,
and you get the explanation, don't you? But look at verse
39, and he went, Christ did, away from Peter, James, and John
a little further than they had gone, and he fell on his face,
and he prayed. Notice now, why is he doing this?
Because his soul is sorrowful unto death. And he's crying out
to God, He's saying, O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither
chasten me in thy hot displeasure, for thine arrows stick fast in
me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There's no soundness in
my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in
my bones because of my sin. So let's go on in Matthew 26. He went a little further and
he fell on his face and he prayed saying, oh my father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will,
but as thou wilt. What cup? Well, first of all,
it was the cup of all of the sins of all of his people put
in a cup of of, what do you call it, the cup of bitterness, the
cup of gall, the cup of, that when you drink it, it was horrible. It's indescribably horrible,
the cup of our sin. and the cup of God's indignation
and wrath because of our sin. All of it in a cup, as it were.
He's talking about it as that. And he said, and he cometh to
his disciples, after he did say that in prayer, and he found
them asleep, and he said to Peter, what, could you not watch with
me one hour? Watch and pray that you enter
not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak. They were obviously weak, and
they weren't with him when he prayed this, and I'm sure it's
precisely according to what must happen that he by himself purged
our sins. Hebrews 1.3, but here he says,
verse 42, he went away again the second time and he prayed
saying, oh my father, if this cup may not pass from me except
I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep
again for their eyes were heavy and he left them and went away
and prayed the third time saying the same words. All right, so
that's what we're having here. We're having the outpouring of
our sins upon the Lord Jesus Christ in his own body on the
tree, and all that goes with sin. The shame of it, the guilt
of it, the reproach of it, the filth of it, and the wrath of
God for it. Look at Leviticus in Leviticus
chapter 16. I want you to see this. Leviticus
is before the book of Numbers in the Old Testament. And Leviticus
16, Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus. Leviticus, I'm sorry, what did
I say? Whatever I said was wrong. Listen to Denise. Leviticus 16,
he says this in verse 20. Now, Leviticus 16 is the day
of atonement. God instructed the high priest
what to do. And one of the things that the
high priest was to do begins in verse 20. When he made an
end of reconciling the holy place and the tabernacle of the congregation
and the altar, he shall bring the live goat and Aaron, the
high priest, shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live
goat So the high priest now has both of his hands laid on the
top of the head of this goat, this living goat. And he confessed
over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all
their transgressions and all their sins, putting them upon
the head of the goat and shall send him away by the hand of
a fit man into the wilderness. That's verse 21. And look at
verse 22. And the goat shall bear upon
him all their iniquities to a land not inhabited, and he shall let
go the goat in the wilderness. All right. So what's happening
here? This is the putting away of our sins. Who does it? Well,
the high priest does it. And who is our high priest? The
Lord Jesus Christ. He's a high priest after the
order of Melchizedek. And as Aaron, he was made like
his brethren in all things, because he would make atonement, he would
make propitiation for their sins. How did he make that propitiation?
Well, first of all, God gave him to be the propitiation for
our sin. He himself is the propitiation,
but he also is the high priest. He's the Lamb of God, and as
the high priest, he laid his hands upon his own head and confessed
all of the sins of all of his people, of God's elect, called
Israel in Leviticus 16, all their sins and all their transgressions
and all their iniquities, putting them upon the head of that goat.
And then by the hand of a fit man, again, the Lord Jesus Christ,
he sent that live goat away into the wilderness to a land uninhabited
and left that goat there with all the sins of all of Israel
on that goat. So that when God looks for their
sins, he finds none. Now, when God looks for something,
if it's there, He finds it. But when God looks and it's not
there, it means that their sins are no more. Therefore, God remembers
their sins no more. And so in Psalm 38, that's what's
happening here. And let's read this further now.
He says in verse four, notice, he says in verse three, there's
no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger. Neither is there
any rest in my bones because of my sin. Now he has confessed
the sins of his people upon his own head. Now they have been
put upon him. Now they are his. Now he owns
them and he bears them in his own body on the tree. In the
garden and on the tree. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree, or up to the tree, as it says in 1 Peter 2, 24. So He carried them. And He carried
them in Himself. He bore them. He was wounded
for our transgression. He bore the sins of many. Isaiah
53, verse 12. All right? That's why He says,
My sin. And that's what it means in 2
Corinthians 5, 21, when He says, For He, God, hath made Him sin
for us who knew no sin. God made Christ sin. Christ knew
no sin. He did that for us that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. So important. So important. Was He a sinner? Well, He didn't commit sin. But
was he a sinner? He was a sinner made so by God
by the transference of our sins to him. God did that. And he did that, it was the will
of God. He says in Hebrews chapter 10,
sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared
me in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Then said I, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me to do thy will, O God. And so that will was for
him to bear our sins in his own body. That's the will, he said,
in the garden of Gethsemane. If it be possible, let this cup
pass from me. It was not possible. It was not
possible for God to be just and to justify the ungodly. and also
not put those sins on Christ. It was not possible. There was
no other way. And God himself is the one in
his wisdom and in his holiness and in his justice and in his
righteousness who determined it was necessary. It was necessary. It seemed good to God, therefore
it was necessary. He says in Romans 4.25, he bore
our sins. Let me see what it says there.
I gotta go back and refresh my memory. He says in Romans 4.25,
who was delivered, Christ was delivered by God the Father for
our offenses, and he was raised again for our justification.
In Romans 8 and verse 32, he says, that God spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all. Therefore, how shall he not with
him also freely give us all things? God delivered him up. God didn't
spare his own son. And in Hebrews chapter two, it
says this, in Hebrews chapter two, in verse 10, let me read
this to you. In Hebrews chapter two, verse
10, he says, For it became him, it seemed good to God. In other
words, it became him for whom are all things and by whom are
all things in bringing many sons to glory. This is God the Father
for him to bring many sons to glory. It seemed good to him
to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. This was God's will. It couldn't
be otherwise. God determined it. And it says
in Acts 2, 23, he was delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. It was God's doing. God delivered
up His Son. God didn't spare His Son. It
pleased the Father to bruise His Son. And it pleased the Son
to submit to that in love and in trust for our salvation, to
take our sins from us, to bear them away, to put them away before
God so that God would not remember our sins anymore because they
would be put away. And this is a wonderful thing.
And that's why he says in verse three, because of my sin. That's why I have no rest. That's
why there's no soundness in my flesh, because of your anger,
because of my sin. Verse four, for mine iniquities
are gone over my head. As a heavy burden, they are too
heavy for me. And that brings to our mind Matthew
11, 28, doesn't it? Coming to me, Jesus said. How can he say that? Because
He bore all that we are, and He knew what it was. We feel
horrible when we sin for so many reasons, confused, fearful. We feel all sorts of things.
Christ knew all that. And so if He did, then He can
have compassion on the ignorant, can He? Because He Himself also
was compassed with infirmity, with our infirmities. And therefore
we are to go to him as our high priest, to the throne of grace,
that we may receive grace to help in time of need. And here
he says, my iniquities are gone over my head. They're too heavy
for me. And then he says in Matthew 11, 28, coming to me, all you
who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest because
he bore our sins in his own body. He took them from his people.
He says in verse five, Psalm 38, verse five, my wounds stink
and are corrupt because of my foolishness. He takes responsibility,
doesn't he? He owns our sins and owns all
of the fault for them. It's all my fault, my foolishness. That's why they stink so bad,
because of my foolishness. He's only confessing what he
became because of what we are. He bore our sins. Verse six,
I am troubled. And the word troubled doesn't
just mean vexed or disturbed. It means twisted. perverted,
crooked, like iniquity. I am troubled. I am bowed down
greatly. I go mourning all the day long."
There was no relief. Just continuously mourning. And
Jesus says in Matthew 5, blessed are they that mourn. He knows
what mourning is, doesn't he? Blessed are they who mourn. M-O-U-R-N,
mourn. They are groaning because of
the effects of sin and they need relief from it. He's the one
who relieves us, who delivers us from it. Verse seven, for
my loins are filled with a loathsome disease. What a description of
sin in our in our body, a loathsome disease like a plague, like leprosy
goes deeper than the skin, like the woman with an unclean with
unclean issue of blood. She snuck up behind the Lord
to touch him so that she could be rid of this uncleanness. My loins, the very seat of our
strength is filled. It's completely filled up with
a loathsome disease. There's no soundness in my flesh,
no health. I'm ruined. I am feeble and sore
broken. All my strength has been exhausted.
I have roared by reason of my disquietness." Now, I want to
read this hymn to you. It's just an excerpt from it,
really, if I can find it here. This was written by Joseph Hart,
H-A-R-T, and he lived back in the 1700s. He wrote this hymn. He says, listen to this. Come,
all ye chosen saints of God, that long to feel the cleansing
blood, in pensive pleasure, or in other words, deep and serious
thought, in pensive pleasure, join with me to sing of sad Gethsemane. Gethsemane, the olive press,
and why so called, let Christians guess, fit name, fit place where
vengeance strove, and gripped and grappled hard with love,
t'was here the Lord of Life appeared, and sighed and groaned and prayed
and feared, bore all Incarnate God could bear with
strength enough and none to spare. That's what he's saying here,
isn't it? In this Psalm here, 38, he says in verse 8, I'm feeble
and sore broken. I have roared, roared by reason
of my disquietness. His heart had no rest. It was
not quiet at all. Disquietness. And it was his
heart, his inward self, So you can see the hand of God pressing
him sore, and that's why he sweat great drops of blood in the garden.
Verse nine, Lord, Lord, all my desire is before Thee, and my
groaning is not hid from Thee. He says, what is his desire?
To be free, to be free from this loathsome disease, to be free
from the sin that he confessed, to be free from all that comes
with sin, the guilt and shame and filth and the punishment
of it and the separation that it brings, the barrier that sin
brings. This constant, I can't lift up
my head like the woman in, The New Testament, she was bowed
together, burdened. Anyway, he goes on, verse 10. My heart panteth, it's like a
runner, he's exhausted. My strength faileth me, as for
the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me. He who is the
light of the world has a man with our sins, bearing them in
his own body, darkness. It was dark, wasn't it, on the
cross, three hours? My lovers and my friends stand
aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off. Isn't this what
it says in the New Testament? All of his disciples fled and
forsook him. They all did. This is our Lord Jesus in the
days of His flesh, bearing our sins and carrying our sorrows
as His very own, as it says in the New Testament. Verse 12,
they also that seek after my life lay snares for me, and they
that seek my hurt speak mischievous things and may imagine deceits
all the day long. So the unjust ones, those who
crucified Christ, They're looking for ways to make his life as
miserable as they can, to inflict the greatest sufferings, and
they spend all their imaginations trying to think of ways to increase
his sufferings, and they're creating this deceit, these lies, in order
to entrap him. They hate him. He goes, but I,
as a deaf man, heard not. I was as a dumb man that openeth
not his mouth. Thus I was as a man that heareth
not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs. Now, when you and I
sin, and we know our sin, what is the effect that it has on
us when we're dealing with God because of our sin? Are we quick
to judge others? No, exactly the very opposite
of that, in fact. we're made low because of it. And we have, we don't consider
ourselves capable of holding anybody to judgment because we
ourselves are, we think of ourselves and see ourselves as deserving
nothing from God and incapable of making any judgments because
we're full of our sin ourselves and anything we say would just
be for our own condemnation. But the Lord Jesus Christ had
no sin, and yet when he was accused as a deaf man, he didn't hear
it. He didn't respond. He didn't
revile again, as it says in 1 Peter 2. When he was reviled, he threatened
not. He was dumb. He didn't speak.
He didn't come to his own defense. He didn't try to vindicate himself. Why? Why didn't he vindicate
himself? Because he was guilty. Isn't
that our feeling when we are accused of others and we're sinful?
Well, what do we say? You're right. It's worse than
you even know. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
that sense, would have to say the same thing. It's far worse
than you even know. That's what he would have said
if he had said anything. But he's not trying to get vindication
from men, is he? He's not pouring out his heart
to men. He doesn't need their approval. He doesn't need their forgiveness. His sin is against God. He needs
God to vindicate him according to his righteousness. He is offering
himself to God in order to remove sin, therefore he has to bear
all that sin is in his own body. And so he goes on in verse 15,
for in thee, O Lord, do I hope. Here we see the godliness of
the Lord Jesus Christ, even though he's confessing our sins. He
hopes in the Lord. In thee, O Lord, do I hope. Thou
wilt hear me. Thou wilt answer me. Oh, Lord,
my God. God's going to answer him. He
has confidence. How could he have confidence
if he's such a sinner? Because he's bearing the sins
of his people by the will of God. He's doing this is obedience. This is his obedience. It says
in Philippians two, six through eight, that he became obedient
even unto death, the death of the cross. That was obedience. He who was equal with God thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation,
took upon him the form of a servant, of a man, and being found in
fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. That's what he's saying
here. He says, In thee, O Lord, do
I hope thou wilt hear, O Lord my God, because he's doing God's
will. He was God's messenger. He was God's high priest. He
was God's king. He was God's prophet. He was
God's surety for his people, God's redeemer. And verse 16,
For I said, hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me when
my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me. For I
am ready to halt and my sorrow is continually before me. I will
declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. And there we have the hope of
every believing sinner that Christ bore our sins. And when he confessed
them as his and was sorry for them, God received that confession
as from us. I don't hope in my own confession.
I don't have confidence that God will hear me because of my
own sincerity or tears or sorrow or anything. but because of his. Look at verse 19. But mine enemies
are lively, and they are strong, and they that hate me wrongfully
are multiplied. But if he's a sinner, there can't
be wrongful hatred. Ah, because they're hating him
for bearing the sins of his people. And this is what false religion
does. False religion hates the gospel. They love nothing more
than to see the failure of those who profess the gospel, who trust
in Christ, just like they did at the cross. They stood by,
as it were, with their hands on their hips, and they said,
he trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver
him, seeing that he trusted in him. And they knew, they thought
they knew, that he couldn't be delivered from the cross, and
so they just stood by mocking him. but he was delivered. God did justify, did vindicate
him, and did save him from death. And so when we see this, mine
enemies are lively, they are strong, they that hate me wrongfully
are multiplied, we can hear all of the kingdom of Satan rising
up in hatred for Christ and his people and his salvation. Is
God gonna stand by and let his appointed, anointed savior fail? Is he gonna let his people who
sinned against him fail, those he promised salvation to? Will
He allow their enemies to boast over them and mock God as no
more than an idol? No. No, of course not. He knew
their sin before He created them. He put them in Christ. He made
Christ sin for them. And therefore He justified them
before the world ever began. And therefore He vindicated them
in the resurrection of Christ when He raised Him from the dead.
Let's go on. Verse 20, they also that render
evil for good are mine adversaries because I follow good. Forsake
me not, O Lord, he felt forsaken. Oh my God, be not far from me.
He felt God was afar and wouldn't hear. In Psalm 22, he said, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? In Isaiah 59, verses one
and two, God says, God's hand is not shortened that he cannot
save, neither is his ear heavy that he cannot hear, but your
iniquities have separated between you and your God. Our iniquities,
they were put on Christ. That's why he said, be not far
from me. Hear me. I know you will hear
me. But then he was forsaken. Make
haste to help me. In other words, make haste to
save me. Oh Lord, my salvation. And isn't this the prayer God
now gives us to pray? The Lord Jesus prayed this. He
was heard, he was saved, but he wasn't saved himself alone.
All of his people were saved in that prayer. He made intercession
for the transgressors. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for the amazing gift of your own only begotten Son, our Savior,
made our surety, our Redeemer, who gave himself for our sins,
who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and
redeemed us to God out of every kindred, tongue, people, and
nation. Thank you for Him. Thank you
for your grace that sent Him, your wisdom that devised and
your faithfulness that promised and fulfilled your promise to
save us by Him. Help us, Lord, in all of the
weakness of our own sinfulness, to look away to the Lord Jesus
Christ, who bore our sin and became weak because of it. And
yet you delivered him from death. You gave him this will to do
and enabled him to do it by your almighty spirit. And thank you,
Lord, for this saving grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.