Okay, so let's look again, and
I'm just gonna walk you through the verses of this psalm, Psalm
22. We're on the third part. This
is the part three of three. I'm not going to continue in
this psalm any further. But it says in the very first
verse, my God, my God. Now I like to stop and consider
every word when I'm reading the scripture. And notice this first
word, my God. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
speak of God as just God. He said, My God. And he says
this under this affliction. So we see here that the people
of God do the same thing. By God's own word, by his covenant
that he has revealed in that word, he says, he has made himself
our God and he has made us his people. This was the promise
in the new covenant. I shall be a God to them and
they shall be my people. And then he goes on in Jeremiah
31, 31 through 34, to say that he would not only be a God to
them, but he would teach them, he would write his laws, his
law upon their heart and in their mind and that he would not remember
their sins and iniquities anymore. Those are promises in the New
Covenant. And so we see here the Lord Jesus Christ as a man
now. As a man, he's saying, my God,
my God. He experienced the agony of the
separation of of the Lord, his God, from him when he was on
the cross, those three hours of darkness, the end of which
he cries this particular psalm in fulfillment of the prophecy,
my God, my God. And I love to think about that,
that God is my God. Now if God is our God, then He
has made a covenant with us. And if He has made a covenant
with us, that covenant was made in the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And if He has made a covenant
with us in the Lord Jesus Christ and His shed blood, then it is
an everlasting covenant. It cannot be broken. God's promises
in that covenant are sure. He has sworn with an oath. by
His immutable counsel, that He will do all that He has promised
for His people. And that covenant was made by
God the Father with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, on behalf
of His people. And so if God is our God, then
He made a covenant with us, because the New Covenant talks about
Him as making Himself our God in that covenant, and that He
makes us His people. And it means that Christ's blood
was shed for us, because that's what made the covenant. All the
conditions in that covenant were made by the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And if he shed his blood for
us, it means that Christ gave himself for us. And if the Lord
did this, then he gave all of himself. He gave himself because
he gave his life in blood. And so when we read in the scripture
about the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, we need to understand
that it's a a reference to the entire sacrifice of himself for
our sins, a sacrifice made to God in offering which God accepted
and with which God was well pleased, and therefore he has satisfied
God in all of the will of God for our salvation. And so all
of this is contained in these words, my God, my God. Remember when Thomas said that,
he saw the wounds in Jesus' hands and side and he said, my Lord
and my God. He understood the connection
between the blood of Christ and the covenant and God's relationship
to his people that he established by covenant relationships in
the Lord Jesus Christ. If God is our God, it means that
covenant that he made with us was made in Christ. Jesus himself
is called the covenant because God made the covenant with him
for us who believe on him. And in this covenant, God receives
from Christ all that He requires of us. There's one in the covenant
who provides all and everything God requires for His people.
That was the covenant. The covenant would be that He
would be a surety, one who would take obligation for His people
for everything God required of them, and he would interpose
himself between the justice of God and them, and he would answer
God's justice with himself, and he would give himself to God
and plead for the release or the redemption of the people
for whom he gave himself so that they might go back to their father
in peace. They would be released from any
obligation because Christ gave himself for them. All these things
are contained in this, my God, my God, phrase because the Lord
Jesus Christ stood for us in this covenant and made us his
people in this covenant relation, giving himself for our sins and
fulfilling all of the conditions of this covenant. My God, my
God, hear the Lord Jesus Christ praise. One man, one man praying,
One man praying in agony as a substitute for his people. That's the gospel.
And he was heard. Notice it says, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Now, the Lord Jesus Christ was
forsaken and we can't understand really the extent of what that
means. We can't fully explore the boundaries
of what all that means, but we know something about what it
means to be forsaken. And we know the distress of mind
it causes us when one of our loved ones fails to make contact
with us or fails to give us the attention that we desire from
them. We feel a loss at the loss of
their presence, the loss of their communication. How much more
when God from whom all of our life flows, every blessing, our
total existence, but especially our salvation, has forsaken us. There's nothing more dreadful
than that to consider. In fact, hell is separation from
the Lord Jesus Christ. So that, because Jesus told those
in Matthew chapter seven, verse 21 through 23, verse 23 specifically
he said, depart from me, you that work iniquity,
I never knew you." So we understand therefore that separation means
punishment, the final and most severe punishment from God that
he would separate someone from his presence. Here the Lord Jesus
Christ is suffering the agony of being forsaken by God as our
substitute. One man suffering agony as a
substitute for his people is forsaken by God, and under that
judgment, he's crying to his God. He has no other hope. He
has no other trust. He has no one else to come to,
to call upon. He doesn't have an idol backup.
He calls on God, my God, my God, the only one who is God, his
only God, and he calls upon him. because he's been forsaken by
him. And then he asked the question, why has thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? It wasn't a light thing, he was
roaring. And then he goes on, verse two,
oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in
the night season, and am not silent. So not only in the daytime,
but at night. He cried day and night, he cried
continuously, but God did not answer him. At least not for
a while, until we see in the end of the psalm, he did not
answer him. He suffered. the pain of being forsaken by
God for a finite period of time, that we might not suffer the
eternal agony of being separated from God forever. That's the
power of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the virtue of his sufferings. That's the virtue of his person
and his righteousness, that his sufferings for this finite time
would satisfy God for our infinite time of sufferings because of
who suffered. And this tells us much about
the dignity the majesty of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Though he was a man, he was the Son of God, and in his person
as Son of God, he had stooped, he had laid aside his reputation
and taken the form of a servant and was made in the likeness
of men, and he was that person who was the Son of God and took
our nature too into union with himself and suffered in that
nature. in order to redeem us from our
sins. And he did so. He fulfilled God's eternal will
to save us. And so we see that. I cry in
the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season,
and in not silence. So we know that in this psalm,
the same psalm, if you look at In verse, I'm going to find the
verse here, give me a second. He says, oh, look at verse 23
of Psalm 22. He says, you that fear the Lord,
praise him. So this is the turning point
in the Psalm, from the agony and the cries of the Lord Jesus
Christ, in verse 23, it has a change. He says, in fact, in verse 21,
look at verse 21, save me from the lion's mouth, for thou hast,
see those words, heard me. That's the first light of salvation
in this psalm, is in verse 21, thou hast heard me. So, because he was heard in verse
21, and he goes on in the victory of that, that he was heard by
God. We know that the first part of the Psalm, where the Lord
Jesus expresses the fact that he was forsaken, was a forsaking
that was but for a moment. In other words, it wasn't forever.
It was a long time. in the experience of his soul.
He had this agony for what seemed to him to be forever because
his soul was so knit to his God. And as the Lord Jesus Christ
was so bound to his God, he'd never been separated from him.
We are accustomed to feeling the guilt on our conscience that
leaves us like Adam hiding behind the trees and trying to cover
our unrighteousness with our own righteousness, but not the
Lord Jesus Christ. He never told a lie. He always
loved the truth, and he wasn't going to compromise the truth
here, and so when he says that God has forsaken him, he's talking
about a forsaking that he did experience for our sins, because
of our sins, but for just a moment. So he goes on, he's crying in
the day, he's crying in the night, God doesn't hear him, Now, if
the Lord Jesus Christ, as a man called on God, is His God, then
we also, because we are in covenant relation with Him, who are the
Lord's people, He is our God, and we are to call on the Lord. Here, the Lord Jesus Himself
calls on His God, and so much more ought we to call, shouldn't
we? We are much more dependent upon Him. as sinners, that He
would give us His grace, and so we call upon Him. How comforting
it is that we can also say, my God, my God, because Christ did,
and He suffered and He was hurt. Therefore, we can also, trusting
Christ, call upon Him. What does it say in Hebrews 10
verse 19? It says, He has by His blood
made for us access into the very holiest of all. And that's our
access, His blood, not our works, not even our faith, but we are
given faith to access it, but when we do have true faith, it's
always by His blood. It's never in consideration of
our own believing. The consideration is entirely
on Christ doing and what He's done. Okay, let's go on to verse
three. He says in verse 3, But thou
art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Now notice
first here that the Lord Jesus Christ is justifying His God
and Father. Under judgment, unimaginable
and immeasurable, but immeasurable, By all but God, only God can
measure and understand his sufferings. But by us, it's completely unimaginable
and immeasurable. But Christ, under this judgment,
vindicates God because God delivered him up for us all. Remember Romans
8, 32? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all. He says, He says when he was
delivered up by his father, by his God, what did he say? Thou
art holy. He never doubted that God did
what he did in holiness. All of God's works are holy and
everything he does is righteous. Psalm 145 verse 17. So we know that when the Lord
Jesus says this, it wasn't like he was stretching the truth or
trying to Be optimistic in the face of something that wasn't
true He was saying the truth God is holy and what he's doing
now is holy and so he justifies God he vindicates what God is
doing in delivering him up to the hand of who his enemies and
into sorrow and in pain and death and Now that tells us something
about our own lives. When we experience hardship in
whatever form it is, whether it's emotional, or if it's financial,
or it's just physical, medical, whatever it is, we can trust
God. We can trust in Him. The Lord
Jesus Christ trusted Him under the most unimaginable and immeasurable
sufferings of all, and agony. So, How many of us, think about
it, how many of us would so justify God for bringing pain and anguish
of soul on us? I doubt that, I mean, even on
our best day, even on our best day, we have such a finite limit
to our ability. And so God is always bringing
us to the end of ourselves so that we realize that our strength
is entirely His own. But then notice, secondly, not
only did he vindicate God under judgment, which expresses his
trust and hope in God according to his word, he never doubted
God's word. He never doubted scripture. He
said a second thing to notice here is that he calls His God,
thou that inhabits the praises of Israel. Now, Israel here in
this verse are those who are the people of God, the Israel
of God, the true Israel of God, as it says in Galatians 6 and
16. They are the people of the Lord,
they're the true circumcision, they're the children of promise,
all these are synonyms for the Israel of God. They're His brethren,
Christ's brethren, There are those God has chosen to salvation,
those Christ redeemed by His precious blood, those who are
born of God, who have the seed of God's Spirit in them, and
that seed of God's Spirit is by the Word of God. We read all
these things in the New Testament, for example, 1 Peter 1.23 and
James 1.17 and 18. All these things teach us that
the Israel of God means the redeemed of the Lord. those who have been
born as God's people. So, for example, in Psalm 33
and verse 12, he says, blessed is the nation whose God is the
Lord and the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance.
So the nation God has chosen for his own inheritance is the
children of promise. They're the children of Abraham,
the spiritual children of Abraham. He says in Psalm 144 and verse
15, happy is that people that is in such a case, yea, happy
is that people whose God is the Lord. The people whose God is
the Lord are the Israel of God. And we know they are because
in Romans chapter 9, he says, they are not all Israel who are
of Israel. In other words, they're not all
true Israel who are born to the nation of Israel, only those
who are the children of promise, as Romans 9 makes abundantly
clear, not Ishmael, but Isaac, not Esau, but Jacob. In both
cases, the elder son was rejected and the younger son was taken,
was the chosen. And God says in Romans 9 that
He did this, that His purpose according to election might stand,
that it would not be of works, our salvation would not be of
works, we would not be children of God by our works, but of Him
that calleth. So here the Israel of God are
those people chosen by the Lord and God inhabits their praises.
Their praises have to do with what God has done to save them
from their sins in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are constantly brought
as believers constantly brought again and again to see that our
salvation is in the Lord Jesus Christ, our standing before God
is in the Lord Jesus Christ, our redemption, our reconciliation,
our righteousness, our sanctification, our justification, everything. We were chosen in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is eternal life and we have
eternal life in Him. We have nothing. There are no
spiritual blessings outside of Christ, but in the Lord Jesus
Christ, we have all heavenly blessings, spiritual blessings
in heavenly places. So, as believers, we're constantly
brought back to that, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that I
might be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, but the
righteousness which is of God by faith. So that nation is taught
this over and over and what do we do as a result? We praise
God in our heart without trying to work up something. God blesses us with this knowledge
under the preaching of the gospel and we hear that our salvation
is in Christ, that before God we are received as Christ. And what happens? In your heart,
you are at peace and rest. You joy. You rejoice. And it
doesn't happen because you made it happen. You're just given
to believe it and you're persuaded of it and you gladly embrace
and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's God's work. It's God who
is in you, who's at work in you to will and to do of his good
pleasure. We trust him because it was God
at work in us, making us willing in the day of his power. And
so, in those praises, God lives. He inhabits the praises of Israel,
because those praises are praising God, the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, for the work of salvation by the Son, given to us by the
Spirit, according to the eternal will of God, and the electing,
sovereign, electing grace of God the Father. Amazing grace,
and we're constantly brought back to this. We don't have the
same level of a joy and peace and assurance at all times in
our lives, we pray like they did in Psalm 80, turn us again.
Lord God of hosts, cause thy face to shine and we shall be
saved. We have to be brought back to
this. We have to be brought back to Christ over and over again. The milk of the word, which is
Christ in him crucified, is the meat of the word to the believer.
That's what I want. I live upon him. And so we find
our life in the Lord Jesus. Now God inhabits the praises
of those people. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
in praying this way, what is he saying here? Under the agony
of suffering, the wrath of God for our sins in our place to
save us from our sins and make satisfaction to God for them,
what does he say? Thou art holy. God has determined
that this is right. to make Him, to make His soul
an offering for sin for us. And God therefore poured out
His justice upon Him in judgment for our sins, laid upon Him and
made His. And He says, Thou art holy. You
inhabit the praises of Israel. And immediately He jumps in to
the next verse, which says, Our fathers trusted in Thee, They
trusted and thou didst deliver them. Our fathers trusted in
you, the Israel of God, right? Those who trust are the Lord's
people. And they were chosen to this.
They were given the grace of faith. They were taught that
Christ is their Redeemer and His blood is their redemption.
And that they are the inheritance of God. And so they are the fathers
who trust God that He will save them for Christ's sake. And the
Lord Jesus Christ, in this agony of soul, justifies, He vindicates
God for pouring out His wrath upon Him and delivering His soul
up for His people. It was good that he do this,
our fathers trusted in thee, and they were delivered. They
trusted that God would save them for Christ's sake, and here the
Lord Jesus Christ is suffering according to that promise God
made to the fathers, that promise they were given grace to trust
in. And so he's fulfilling that and he's calling in remembrance,
not that God needs to be called in remembrance, but God delights
to be called to remembrance on those who depend on him. Lord,
this is your will. This was your promise. This was
your will that I should offer myself for the sins of the people.
Now, hold me up. Now hear my cry. I cry into you day and night.
Hear me. Oh, my God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? You are holy. You inhabit the
praises of your people. They praise you for your salvation,
the salvation, the very work I'm undertaking to do, the very
work now that you are doing by delivering me up for them as
a substitute. And so we see how it ties together.
And so he says, our father's trusted in thee in verse four.
They trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto
thee, and were delivered. They trusted in thee and they
were not confounded. They weren't put to shame. They
weren't disappointed. They were not confused by trusting
what wasn't true. God fulfilled his word. Now if
God fulfilled his promises to the fathers, what does that mean?
It means that God had already received in pledge from Christ
that he would offer himself for them. Therefore God had to deliver
him. And he's pleading according to
God's eternal will and promises to the fathers and to the Israel
of God, whose praises he inhabits. And he goes on in verse six,
but I, I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised
of the people. All they that see me laugh me
to scorn. They shoot out the lip. They
shake the head, saying, he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver
him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. So what
are these people doing here? Well, he's saying here that he,
first of all, in verse 6, is a worm and no man. Now, the word
here for worm is a special kind of worm in Scripture. You don't
see it, but if you look at this word, and you can do this with
the Blue Letter Bible or other kinds of tools, but if you look
at this verse here, the word worm means a scarlet or a crimson
grub. It was a kind of a grub that
people would use to dye garments red, blood red. And they would
do this, so this grub was taken and its fluids were used to dye
garments red. So it was called the crimson
grub. And what the Lord Jesus is saying
here is, I am a worm. I'm a crimson grub. And another
word that this word is translated into our English is maggot. So he's so low and despised that
he viewed himself through the eyes of men as a maggot, and
yet he was the one who would be the crimson grub. Now, when
you think of crimson and you think of scarlet, what immediately
comes to your mind? Well, for me, it's Isaiah 1,
verse 18, where it says, Come now, and let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. So blood red or scarlet or crimson,
those colors, scarlet and crimson, are the color of blood, right?
And blood always signifies death. And what is death the result
of? Sin. So where there's blood red,
it's because of sin. And we're only, there's no atonement
apart from the shedding of blood because a compensation has to
be made to God's justice for our sins. So though we, it says
in Isaiah 118, your sins are as scarlet, in other words, they're
crying out for God's judgment. They shall be white as snow,
and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. The Lord
Jesus Christ is saying here, I am the crimson grub. I'm the
one who is lower than a man, because it was me that God delivered
up for the Israel of God, for the fathers, and that's why he's
crying this way. He was made lower than a man.
In the eyes of God, in the eyes of men, they despised and rejected
him. He says this, I'm despised of
the people, a reproach of men. They looked upon him with scorn. In verse 7 he says, all they
that see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip, they
shake the head saying he trusted in God. So look at this for a
minute, verse 7. Christ's enemies could not find
satisfaction until their lust for his blood was satisfied. And he was humiliated before
all as a pretender. That was their goal. Humiliate
him as much as anyone could be humiliated. expose him as false,
as a pretender, and then when he's under the agony of soul,
because God's hand of affliction is upon him and there's no one
to deliver him, and when he cries, then we're going to laugh at
him. We're going to shoot out the lip and wag the head and
scorn him and despise him. That's what they couldn't get
enough satisfaction in his death. They had to add to it scorn.
And you know what this is like, don't you? As a child, if you
were ever at school and other children made fun of you, it
just made you feel awful, didn't it? And when anybody does that,
maybe not even at school, maybe just in your work or your family,
physical pain hurts our body. We know what physical pain is
like. But there's another pain that hurts our mind and our soul,
and it's the words of others and the actions of others. These
people, in verse 7, they see me, they laugh me to scorn, they
shoot out the lip and they shake the head and they say these things
against me. He trusted the Lord? Go ahead. Prove your trust. Prove
that you're not a pretender. If the Lord's going to deliver
you, then let him deliver you. But since he's not, then obviously
you're a liar and a hypocrite and you're false, and therefore
go ahead and suffer." So these words of theirs hurt his mind
and soul. And you know what it's like.
We can live in our body, but of those of us who are in our
bodies and living, all of us do now, If we're not loved, if
we don't experience love, what's it like living without love? Without the assurance of the
love of those people that we love, what do you feel like?
You feel really bad. You feel worse than if you were
physically sick, right? And that's why I was thinking
about this this last week. Remember what Jesus said, when
I was sick, what did he say? When I was sick, you, what did
what? You visited me. Now, today, when we're sick,
what happens? Well, don't get near that person,
they're sick and we might catch it. They might be contagious,
better stay away. But by doing that, what are we
doing? We're going against what Jesus said, when I was sick,
you visited me. Clearly, because Jesus said,
when I was sick, you visited me, he meant for us to visit
the sick. And he meant to set aside our
tendency to be cautious in visiting the sick, to protect ourselves,
in order to do what? To comfort the sick. Because
the Lord knows that comfort showed by love and concern and sympathy
for the sick person goes far more than physical healing. If you're assured of love, sickness
is tolerable. If you know that your mom feels
your pain, you could endure a lot of pain as a child, and so it
is even now. If you know someone genuinely
cares for you and is concerned for you in your sickness, you
can tolerate it. But if no one cares for you,
you might just have a light sickness and you feel awful, don't you?
In fact, people get sick with the doubt of love. Without love,
life is meaningless. But with love, even hardship
is endurable, right? We understand that principle.
Notice that same principle here. These people took nothing, more
delight in anything except to make Christ feel pain. in his
mind and in his soul. And so they laughed him to scorn
and they shot out the lip and they shook their head and they
accused him of trusting God in vain. And what could be more
harmful to his tender mind and conscience than to say that he
trusted God for nothing and that God had forsaken him? That was
the very thing he felt. And they were laying it on thick
here in order to add to his suffering. And so we see this, that these
people did this, laughing and scorning him and shooting out
the lip, and these all describe a painful hatred of the nastiest
sort. And then, does it make me feel
bad when I remember all the times I have done something like that
to someone else? Trying to make myself appear
better before someone else by making someone else seem low
in the eyes of others. That is a wicked thing, isn't
it? And yet we're all guilty of it. But here Christ suffered. He suffered this from those who
unleashed against him all the venom that was in them, and he
was delivered to this suffering by God. Now that's impressive,
isn't it? God is the one who delivered
him to this. Notice he says, He trusted on
the Lord that he would deliver him, let him deliver him, seeing
he delighted in him. But Christ couldn't be delivered
from the cross. He had to go to death. He knew that. If he
would have been taken from the cross, all of us would have suffered
for our own sins. He couldn't do that. Love compelled
him. And God's will, his love for
his Father. But he says, notice now, In verse 9, in denial of
their accusation that he trusted God in vain, in denial of their
accusation that he claimed to be the delight of God and he
delighted in God as his God, as if that was a false thing.
Look at verse 9. But thou art he that took me
out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when
I was on my mother's breast." So he offers a defense to their
false claims, to the charges of his enemy. He did trust God,
and he had trusted him, in fact, from the womb, from the womb
of his mother. Now, unless we're taken by God,
unless we're taken out of our mother's womb, what happens to
us? We die in the womb, don't we? And so the womb, therefore,
of the mother is like it's a comparison to the grave. If God doesn't
take us from the womb, we die there. We never see the light
of day, do we? So he says here that God had
taken him from his mother's womb. Thou art he that took me out
of the womb. So here this is offered up by
Christ in prayer. And the womb here signifies an
earlier event An event before his birth where he trusted in
God and God brought him out of the womb, and in that event he's
using and referring to that event as proof of his father's unfailing
and unchanging purpose, right? So again, the Lord is building
on God's word, he's building on his faithfulness, he's building
on the character of God, and he's putting his trust in God
who is faithful. He says, thou art he that took
me out of the womb, thou didst make me hope. When I was on my
mother's breast, if God delivered him from the womb of his mother
and did not leave him in the womb, then being unchanging and
the same God that he was then, he trusted that he would deliver
him from death even now. You see the connection? He would
deliver him from death because he had delivered him from the
womb and he trusted God then and he trusts God now. Whatever
God does, he's trusting his God. The Lord says in Malachi 3.6,
I'm the Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. So in his prayer, the Lord Jesus
refers to God causing him to hope while he was at his mother's
breast and nursing. His mother obviously was taking
tender care for her son, and yet what does he attribute that
care to? He doesn't praise his mother.
He doesn't, does he? He praises God. He says, you
made me hope when I was on my mother's breast. God, my God,
is providing me this nourishment and this tender care from my
mother. He looked to the source. He didn't look to the intermediate
and lift up the intermediate as some kind of idol. He always
praised God and attributed everything to his God. And so God had made his hope and made
himself his hope while he was utterly dependent as an infant
and when he was without strength. And now once again, the Lord
Jesus Christ, as a man suffering under the wrath of God, is without
strength. He lays his case at his father's
feet, he entrusts himself into the hand of his God and Savior,
and even while trusting as a dependent child and as an infant, we see
his humility, we see his humiliation, both as an infant in the womb,
depending on God as a helpless infant, and now depending upon
him as a man suffering under the wrath of God for his people,
He has made himself utterly dependent on God. It says it this way in
Galatians 4 and verse 4. He was made of a woman. He was
made under the law in order that he might redeem them that were
under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. That's
why he did it. He himself was made lower than
the angels. He took our nature that he might
taste death for every son. You see? You see the connection?
I hope you do because here we see the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
look at this in Psalm 22 in verse 10. I was cast upon thee from
the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's
belly. It was as if this phrase, cast
upon thee, it was as if he was cast upon him as an outcast. He had only one hope, rejected
by men, rejected by all on earth. He had only God to trust. And
so he says, thou art my God from my mother's belly. He never had
another God except his God. He never had an idolatrous thought.
that he would trust another instead of God, and his prayer was always
to his God and to his Father, even in the womb. In fact, before
the womb, because he said in Hebrews chapter 10, in verse
5 of Hebrews 10, when he comes into the world, he said, a body
has thou prepared me. This was to do the will of God.
He trusted himself into his father's hand. Not only from birth, but
before birth, not only at conception, but before conception, God was
his God. You see that? God was his God. And he's referring to that. Now,
notice the build up here in verse 11. The one who had been his
God from his mother's womb. The one he looked to when he
was on his mother's breast. The one he was cast upon from
the womb. What does he say to him? He says
in verse 11, be not far from me for trouble is near. And for there is none to help,
no one to help. Trouble is near. Oh my God, you're
my God. I've always been my God, even
from my mother's belly when I was cast out, you see. Everyone forsook
me, but I am trusting in you, and I have nowhere else to look."
Don't you feel like that sometimes? Don't you, in the experience
of our life, don't we feel like that sometimes? I have no other
hope unless God, for Christ's sake alone, saves me from my
sin and brings me to glory. gives me his spirit, gives me
faith in him, holds me up, causes me to love him, unless he does
this, unless he gives me a new heart, takes my sins away for
the sake of his son, the blood of his son, I have no hope. And
so he says that, be not far from me, trouble is near. Now look
at verse 12. He says, many bulls have compassed me. Strong bulls
of Bashan have beset me around. So the bulls here are those who
were in the days of Christ when he was suffering. They are the
governors. They are the chief priests and the Sanhedrin, those
who had authority over men delegated to them by God. And yet, those
who used that delegated authority for abuses. They used the delegated
authority of God for an unholy use. And so he's calling them
bulls, because they have the strength of the government. And
they misuse, they abuse their powers that was delegated to
them by God, and they use it against the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Righteous One, to unjustly condemn him to death. to turn
him over to the will of wicked men. And so he cries out like
a lamb in the corral of bulls. Think of it that way. Christ
was suffering the merciless and the cruel and the shameless treatment
at the hand of his enemies. And so he cries out, Lord, I'm,
these many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Bayshan have
beset me round. Then it says, they gaped upon
me with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. You don't
normally think of bulls like lions, but the mixture of these
two images brings to our our imagination that the enemies
of Christ in the political government and in the religious world represent
this combination of a lion that's devouring with terrifying, insatiable
thirst for blood and relentless and the power of this bull that
just charges ahead and mows down everything in his path. There's
no resisting the bull as he's charging. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ has been given over to this, this strength of these
two animals. He suffered, he trusted, he cried,
and he was heard. God answered him in his affliction. On the part of men it was unjust,
on the part of God it was holy. And that seems to be a paradox,
because God brought on him what we deserved, you see. Whatever
we endure by this cruelty of men, whether it be political
or religious, we must go to the one who sits on heaven's throne
because, why? The Lord Jesus Christ himself
experienced the same misuse by the same powers. So what are
we going to do? We're going to do what he said.
We're going to do what he did. We're going to trust ourselves
in the God who's the judge of all, who reigns. And the Lord
Jesus Christ is our captain. And notice, when someone experiences
these kinds of sufferings, what comes over them when they see
someone else suffering the same things? empathy. They have a strong empathy. They've
been through this. Not only that, but if that same
someone who suffered this and has such empathy also has all
of the power in heaven and earth, what do you think he's going
to do? That's why in Hebrews 4, 14 through 16, he says, we
don't have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. In all points he was tempted
like we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
to the throne of grace, the throne of grace, that we may obtain
mercy and find grace to help in time of need." We can go to
the very one who prayed these words, who has an empathetic
view of his people, of the tenderest kind, having suffered himself,
having trusted God, having been delivered, and he brings to us,
as the captain of our salvation, his victory, points us to that,
and we overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and the Gospel,
our testimony. Okay? So, on to verse 14. He says, I'm poured out like
water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax.
It is melted in the midst of my bowels. So his soul was weighed
down with sorrow. His body endured the greatest
sufferings. And he knows, therefore, how
to comfort his people in any trouble, doesn't he? Look at
the imagery here. I'm poured out like water. It's
like he melted his whole his whole All of his strength was
gone and he says it this way also my bones are out of joint
all of them There's no strength. I can't rely on my bones because
they're not connected anymore He says, my heart is like wax. It's not like a muscle beating.
It's like wax. It's melted in the midst of my
bowels. And my strength is dried up like
a pot shirt. Have you ever been so thirsty
you don't have any strength? Maybe you're doing something
and you don't have enough food, not enough water, you start to
shake, you get weak, you have to sit down, your forehead gets
clammy, and you lose strength, and you say, I just need to sit
here, things are getting dark, I'm about to pass out, what's
happening? It's your strength. Your strength
is being dried up like a potsherd, like a piece of clay in the hot
sun. You don't have any strength because your moisture is gone.
He says, further, my tongue cleaveth to my jaws and thou hast brought
me into the dust of death. He's describing here the thirst
he experienced on the cross. Remember what he prayed? I thirst,
remember? I thirst. I thirst to do the
will of God. I thirst that God would visit
me with his salvation, that he would answer my cry. I thirst
for my people that I would, that by his sufferings, he would have
them and save them and see them presented to himself in love.
He thirsts for all that God has. That's his delight. And so he
thirsts for it. But now in the agony of his soul,
he's very thirsty. because he doesn't see the realization
of his desire. He hasn't finished the work yet.
He goes on, he says in verse 16, for dogs have compassed me,
the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, they pierced my
hands and my feet. Now you can see this That dogs,
you know what dogs are like? Have you ever seen dogs attack
another dog? What happens? The dog is absolutely
merciless. He doesn't care if he's eating
sheep and the sheep is still alive. They just eat it. Absolutely
without feeling. No conscience. No shame. You can't shame a dog into doing
what's right. God compares the wicked to dogs. And so here, he's comparing those
who afflicted him in this way while he was undergoing all that
he did in relation to the cross. He compares them to dogs. Dogs
encompass me. I'm surrounded by dogs. And notice
the next part. He explains who the dogs are.
Dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my
feet." Who were the dogs? They were those who nailed him
to the cross. They were those who parted his
garments. They were those who convicted
him. without a just cause. They were the dogs. They don't
show compassion to their prey, not at all. They're unclean,
foul, filthy, vicious. They tear and they eat their
victims while they're alive. They're merciless. They have
one intent, to satisfy their hunger lust. By the flesh of
their prey, they're greedy, they're shameless, they're insatiable,
they're unconscionable, they're outrageous, and they're cruel.
That's what dogs are. And this describes, according
to 2 Peter 2.22, dogs. They return to their own vomit.
And that's the assembly of the wicked. Notice the language. God uses to describe his view
of those who wickedly put Christ to death. Dogs, dogs. And the
Gentiles were called dogs in scripture. That's us. So you can see here that the
how far God had to stoop to save us. We're dogs, unless the Lord
saves us. And so, this assembly of the
wicked is set in contrast to the assembly of Christ's people,
called his sheep, and his brethren, and his friends, the church,
the congregation of the Lord. And this assembly of the dogs
is not like the assembly of Christ. The assembly of the Lord are
those who worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ and have
no confidence in the flesh. But the dogs, they only want
to do one thing. They're greedy. They just want
to chomp down and destroy and they don't even think twice about
it. They live for it. And so, do you want to be turned
over to this assembly? Christ was. We deserve this,
that's the reason why. And it was from God's hand, and
the Lord meant it for good, and Christ said he was holy in doing
this. You see the combination here?
It was good because God himself, in doing so, upheld his truth
and justice, honored his law, and made a way for his grace
and mercy to be lavished upon us by the righteousness of Christ
in his offering to God for our sins. That's what he did here.
Look at verse 17. I may tell all my bones, they
look and stare upon me. And I think I might have mentioned
this last time, I don't remember. The word tell here just means
to count. So the dogs came to tear and kill in the most cruel
way, and he's left to die without anything to tear. All he has
is his bones, like a man who's wasted in the desert, just bones. That's all that's left. The dogs
have done their best to remove all flesh. And symbolically,
of course, he still had all of his flesh on him, but they had
torn him. They had continually assaulted
him. And so the bones of our Savior could be seen because
he had spent himself for his people in his obedience to God
as the servant of the Lord to save us from our sins. He spent
all. He shed his blood. He could tell
his bones. Everything was laid bare here
of himself. And the bones have another meaning.
Remember how Adam said that when God brought Eve to him after
he had put Adam to sleep and formed a woman from his rib,
he said, this woman now is now what? Bone of my bones, flesh
of my flesh. And here the Lord says, I may
count all my bones. So another view of this text
of scripture is that because the Lord suffered for his people,
the result of that, of his obedience to his Father, is that none of
his people would be lacking. All of them would be saved. He
would count them all and none of them would be lost. His own
death delivered them from death. And then in verse 18 he says
this, They part my garments among them. They cast lots for my vesture.
They took away his life in the most cruel manner. They mocked
him with their words, and they afflicted him with their hands.
They spit upon him. They beat him. They stripped
him. And now, as he hung on the cross
of cursing, what do they do? They divide his clothes among
themselves. They took the little that he
had left, and they left him naked with nothing. You see? Just like
his bones. They bound him and brought him
to death, but they could not be satisfied until they exposed
him in humiliation and shame before all. So they took his
clothes as a sign of spoiling him as the one who was their
enemy, and they had utter victory over him, they thought. They
thought they had won the battle, and so they took his clothes
as spoil, and they tried to take away his honor, they took away
his life and his soul, and they even took his garments. They
rewarded him evil for good. It says in Psalm 35, 12, they
rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul. So taking his garments and dividing
them signifies the fact that they were trying to afflict his
soul there at the foot of the cross,
gambling for His garments, leaving Him naked without anything to
His shame before all. And they loved it. And this was,
that this very thing was to His, not to His shame, but to His
honor, because He gave Himself for our sins. So in verse 19
he says this, Notice he cries to God who was his trust from
the womb when he was utterly helpless and now again he had
learned this obedience. The obedience of submitting himself
to God delivering him up to his enemies that he might suffer
what we deserve in order to satisfy God in justice and deliver us
from our sins. That was the obedience he had
to learn through his sufferings. Every step of the way was another
conscious submission of his will to God's will. And he did it
in love. He did it in love. He's left
alone. There's no one to help. But in
this weakness, he cries in prayer out of his affliction that the
Lord, his strength would not be far from him. And then he
adds this, haste thee to help me. Hurry! In verse 20, he says,
deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of
the dog. So here, Jesus takes God's cause
in his prayer when he says, deliver my soul from the sword, my darling
from the power of the dog. Notice the language here. Deliver
my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog. You
could say, well, his soul is his darling. But I understand
it this way. He takes God's view of himself
and he takes God's own view to God in prayer. See, that's effective. He takes what God sees to him
in prayer. He prays the will of God. Deliver
my soul from the sword. My darling, meaning I am your
darling. They accused him of lying when
he said, let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. But
now he makes his supplication to God as the darling of his
God, as the darling of his father. Deliver my darling. The son of
God expresses the heart of his father towards himself. He was
without doubt the darling of his father's love. And this,
his father has said, this is my beloved son, remember? In
Matthew 17, 5, at the Mount of Transfiguration, at his baptism,
this is my beloved son. But here he speaks also of his
own people, because he says, deliver my soul and my darling
from the power of the dog. So to Christ, His people are
his bride. That's why he gave his life.
Because he loved the church, he gave himself for it. They
are his darling. And so he speaks of his own people
as the love of his heart, deliver my darling, that is my bride,
by delivering me from the power of the dog. If Christ is delivered,
we're delivered, right? He overcame the world, He overcame
the devil, He overcame our sin, and what does He say in Romans
4.25? He was delivered for our offenses,
and then He was raised again for our justification. In His
deliverance, our justification, and our salvation. We're delivered
in his deliverance. We overcome by the blood he shed,
by the gospel that tells us what he did and what he accomplished
there, and how we therefore ought to come into the very holiest
because of his blood that was shed for us for the church of
God, which is God's darling as much as his son. Have you ever
thought about that? Christ, the Son of God, is God's
darling. But isn't the Church loved as
He is? In John 17, verse 23, He says,
Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me. And so we see
that. The Church is the darling, Christ is the darling of the
Lord, and He prays for deliverance. Now, here He says in verse 21,
Save me from the lion's mouth, for Thou hast heard me from the
horns of the unicorn. Let's see, I feel like I'm running
out of time here. Let me jump, I want to get to
the end. Notice how the tide turns here
in the psalm. And I pointed this out earlier
in verse 21. Thou hast heard me. So at this point in time
and to the end of the psalm, the Lord Jesus Christ is declaring
to his brethren his victory. And he's praising God for delivering
him, for hearing him and delivering him. So it wasn't that he was
forsaken forever. God heard him. God delivered
him. He trusted God. He cried to God. God heard him.
God delivered him. And his deliverance now, he takes
his own deliverance at the cross. And what does he do? He declares
his father's name to his brethren. And he also joins them, look
at verse 22, I will declare thy name to my brethren in the midst
of the church will I praise thee. He praises God, he joins with
his people to praise God because he was delivered. And he teaches
them that his own deliverance is their salvation. So that praise
comes from them because of what he teaches them about God. How
God gave his son to reconcile them, gave him up in life and
death in order to reconcile them and to make them his sons. What
a great deliverance. In verse 23, he says, you that
fear the Lord, praise him, all you the seed of Jacob, glorify
him and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel. So those who
fear the Lord are those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
clear because they're called the seed of Jacob. And we know
that the seed of Jacob are those who are the elect of God, who
trust him, because all who believe Christ are Abraham's true seed. Therefore, those who fear the
Lord are those who believe the Lord. In verse 24 he says, For
he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted,
neither has he hid his face from him, but when he cried, he heard
him. He heard. Christ cried, he heard. And in contrast to all the dogs
and the bulls, God did not despise him. God did not abhor his cries. God did not abhor his affliction.
When he was afflicted and cried, he heard, he answered. God is
merciful. Man is cruel and merciless. That's the lesson here. Never
trust men. because God alone is the merciful one. David said,
let me be turned in over to the Lord, not to men, because God
is merciful. He says in verse 25, my praise
shall be of thee and the great congregation. I will pay my vows
before them that fear him. The Lord Jesus Christ praises
and joins in praise with his people called the great congregation. He pays his vows before them
that fear, The Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ crucified is set
forth before us in the gospel evidently. Remember in Galatians
3 verse 1 and 2, Christ is evidently set forth in the preaching of
the gospel. And in that setting forth of
Christ in the gospel, what do we see? We see Him paying His
vows. He fulfilled what He promised
to do. to do the will of God, he did it. The gospel declares
that. And that's what he says here. My praise shall be of thee
in the great congregation. I will pay my vows before them
that fear him. The gospel declares how he paid
his vows. He will keep his word. He will
save his people because he gave himself for their sins. Then
in verse 26, the meek shall eat and be satisfied. They shall
praise the Lord that seek him. Your heart shall live forever.
The meek, Remember Matthew chapter 5? What does Jesus say? The meek
shall inherit what? The earth. Here he says, the
meek shall eat and be satisfied, they shall praise the Lord, they
seek him, your heart shall live forever. So the meek are who?
They inherit the earth. Therefore, since they are the
saints inherit the earth with Christ, we know the meek are
those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. If the meek inherit
the earth and the saints inherit the earth, then the meek and
the saints are the same people. Right? And that's the church.
And who are the church? Those who believe. Those who
were ordained to eternal life believe. Remember Acts 13, 48?
And all who believe, Jesus said, have eternal life. They've passed
from death to life. They shall not come under condemnation. They believe Christ. They therefore
have eternal life. And to eat, where it says here,
the meek shall eat and be satisfied. To eat in scripture has to refer
with true faith Eating of Christ is by true faith taking hold
of Christ and Him crucified as my salvation and delighting in
Him before God. Verse 27. All the ends of the
world shall remember and turn to the Lord. All the kindreds
of the nation shall worship before thee." What is this saying? Out
of all the world, God has his elect, and they're going to,
as a result of Christ's sin-atoning death, and his resurrection,
and ascension, and enthronement, and glory, And the gospel being
sent out, what's going to happen? All the ends of the world shall
remember and turn to the Lord. All the kindreds of the nation
shall worship before thee. The Gentiles are going to be
brought in. The elect Jews from throughout the world are going
to be brought in. God's church, Christ's people. is going to
be built up into the temple, and at the end of time, that
temple will be presented, and God will dwell in them, and they
will dwell with God, and the Lamb will be the glory of that
city. And so we see that this is speaking
about the every kindred, tongue, people, and nation redeemed by
Christ's blood and brought to Him. Okay, finally, the last
couple of verses here. Let me go through those. I'm
going to skip over two verses. I'm going to go to verse 30.
If you're interested in the commentary on the rest of this, you can
look at the document I sent out with the Zoom meeting invitation.
In verse 30 it says, a seed shall serve him and it shall be counted
to the Lord for a generation. You see that, verse 30? A seed
shall serve him, it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
What is this seed? What is this generation? Well,
first of all, the Lord Jesus Christ is the seed, singular,
who served him. But all of his people are called
his seed also in scripture. We're the children of God by
faith in Christ Jesus, Galatians 3.26. And if you be Christ, then
are you Abraham's seed, meaning those who were the children of
God, just as Abraham was, evidenced by their faith in Christ. So
the seed is first Christ because he served the Lord, God, counted
all of his obedience as ours, so that the generation of all
of his people was comprised of Christ's obedience. A seed, Christ
shall serve him and all of his people are in him, therefore
it is their obedience. But it also means that all those
who believe the gospel are the true seed, they're the seed of
Christ, called the seed of Abraham too in Galatians 3, and And they're
the ones who also serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are His
people, His generation. I hope that makes some sense
to you. In verse 31, I wanna read this,
the last verse here. This is a powerful verse. We
could just spend the whole hour on this alone. He says, notice
in verse 31, the last verse of Psalm 22, they shall come, the
seed that serves Him, they shall come, and they shall declare
His righteousness, to a people that shall be born, that He has
done this." Has done what? Done all that's written here
in Psalm 22. Delivering up His Son from death,
I mean to death, and delivering up His Son from death and from
His enemies. God did this. That's what He's
saying. And then the Lord Jesus Christ, because of that, declared
the victory and his father to his brethren, and they praise
the Lord. They that fear the Lord, praise
him. They that are with Christ, trust in him just like he did.
And so he says, they shall come. Christ's people would come, and
what will they declare? The Lord Jesus Christ and His
righteousness. And what is the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Everything He had to do to fulfill
the will of God, to save His people from their sins, and to
honor the law of God. Everything He did in life and
death. primarily when he laid down his life for his friends,
who in themselves were enemies, but he loved his enemies and
he gave himself for those who were his enemies. And that fulfills
the law, because love fulfills the law. And he laid down his
life, which is more than the law required, which is the full,
everlasting righteousness of God in the death of Christ. They
declare this righteousness to a people that shall be born,
those who hear the gospel, and under the hearing of the gospel,
the Spirit of God gives them life, births them as God's children,
and this is the message that they have. He has done this. He has done this. You see? God
has done this. The Lord Jesus Christ said in
his prayer, but thou art holy. God has done this. God delivered
up his son for us all. How shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. And
who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died. And this
was by the will of God. God did this. God is the one
who has purged our sins, has washed them away, and he tells
us in Isaiah 43, 25, and 26, put me in remembrance. Bring
this to mind in your prayers, in your thoughts, and in your
praise that the Lord Jesus Christ has done this. Let's pray.