All right, thank you all for
coming. We're in Psalm 22. This is actually the second part
where we started last week, and I wouldn't be surprised if we
have a third part on this Psalm. We will see how it goes. There
is a great deal of material here, and it's very, very important,
so I don't want to try to hurry through it. So Psalm 22 is where
we are, and before we begin, let's pray. Father, We pray that
for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the sake of your
own name and your glory, you would be pleased to bless us
from your word tonight, that we might know you in truth, we
might see your person and your work and honor you as this psalm
teaches we are to do. We pray, Lord, that you would
not bless us for our own sake, but for Christ's sake, that you
would receive us not for what we do or for what we are, but
for what Christ has done and for who He is. And that we would
also come to you that way. We would trust only in the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what we learn in the
gospel of your son. And Lord, we thank you that this
is the way it is. We are so happy to learn this
as sinners, that there's hope for us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So we pray, Lord, that you would bless us tonight for his sake.
And it's in his name we pray, amen. Psalm 22 begins this way. My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken
me? As I was thinking about this
verse, just these words of it, I was thinking how we could underline
each of the words in here and have a long lesson just on the
underlining of each of those words in sequence. My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? Or we could underline the word
thou, why hast thou forsaken me? All others who have forsaken
me, I can understand, but why hast thou forsaken me? Or even
the last word, why hast thou forsaken me? The Lord Jesus Christ
was forsaken. So when you see these words of
this psalm, you can see how penetrating and how important each of the
words are. And I encourage you to read this
psalm carefully and meditate on it in your own time, because
that's the way you really are going to benefit from it. As
we meet together and talk about it and ask the Lord to bless
us, there is a blessing and that blessing will continue as each
of us meditate on this psalm. So the first verse here is clearly
taken, we must understand it as God has revealed it to be
a prophecy, a prophecy of what would happen. This psalm was
spoken perhaps a thousand years before the Lord Jesus Christ
hung on the cross. And yet on the cross, at the
very close of his life, just before he died, the Lord Jesus
Christ uttered this prayer, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? If you remember last time, he
uttered these words at about 3 p.m. It says in scripture,
in Matthew 27, it was the ninth hour, and they began counting
the hours at 6 a.m. in the morning, so 3 p.m. would
correspond to the ninth hour. And then it also says in Matthew
27 that about the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole
face of the earth. So from the sixth hour or noon
to about the ninth hour or 3 p.m. there was darkness over the whole
earth. Now that's something, isn't it? That there would be
darkness over all of the earth when the Lord Jesus Christ hung
on the cross during these three hours. That is something also
to consider and to meditate on. Why was there darkness? And I'm not going to get into
that right now, but you can see from the cry of this psalm that
darkness reflected the fact that God had forsaken the Lord Jesus
Christ on the cross. That was the darkness. There
is no light apart from God. There is no life apart from God. There's no comfort. There's no
salvation, no mercy. There's no blessings apart from
God. Everything we have comes from God. Our heartbeat, our
breath, our ability to understand. Our love for God, our faith in
Christ, everything comes to us by God's grace and his gift to
us. We don't deserve it. Even our
prayers have sin in them. But here the Lord Jesus Christ
as a man is completely dependent upon God. And so when he hung
on the cross and God had forsaken him, we know that this was in
itself the greatest suffering he could have endured. And that's
what I want to talk about a little tonight. So let's read these
three verses at the beginning. It says, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me? So forsaken and without help. And from the words of my roaring. Animals, if you've ever heard
an animal that's hungry or in distress, it will cry. If you've
heard lions on those shows where they have movies of lions in
Africa, lions roar when they're hungry. Here's a man roaring. Men don't roar, but Christ roared
in his prayer. That's what he's saying. The
words of my roaring. You can see how desperate he
was. He says, oh my God, I cry in
the daytime, but thou hearest not. God didn't hear, didn't
respond. He didn't get any affirmation
that God even heard him. and in the night season, and
am not silent." He was faithful in his crying, in his prayers.
He didn't stop. He wasn't indifferent at all.
This was the height of need. He stood as a man in need of
mercy, in need of salvation, in need of light, in need of
comfort, in need of everything as a man that we depend upon
God as men and women. He needed everything from God
and he had put himself in that place willingly for our sakes. So, let's think about this for
a minute. When we read this psalm, I was inclined to look at this
psalm as a sinner. needing God and feeling forsaken
by God because of my sin. It's a natural feeling of distress
when because of our sin we know that we are estranged from God.
And so we could take the first verse as a sinner and we can
identify with the feeling of being forsaken by God because
it seems like there's no light, no comfort, no presence of God
in our experience. My God. My God, I only have one
God, only one creator, one source of light and life and comfort,
knowledge. I can't unconfuse myself, I can't
do any of these things. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? But that tendency to identify
with what's spoken here by the Lord Jesus Christ as a sinner
helps us to understand what he truly felt. And yet, it goes
so far from what he actually experienced here. Because as
I said, to be forsaken by God is the height of suffering. The curse of God is to be separated
from God, and that's what forsaken means. Left, left alone, without
help, without strength, without an answer, silence. And so this
is the way the Lord Jesus Christ here hung on the cross. Now,
I want to emphasize this, this is so important, that the Lord
Jesus Christ prayed these words on the cross because he was suffering
for our sins. That seems so fundamental that
even children could probably tell you that. But I can tell
you this, that sometimes when I read my Bible, or perhaps when
you read your Bible, you wonder, How do I interpret these words?
How do I interpret this psalm? How do I know what God is truly
saying here? I don't want to make it up. I
don't want to think of God just out of my own imagination. I
don't want to create an idol in my mind. I want God to make
himself known. So how can I be sure that this
psalm is speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ suffering for our
sins? We have to go to the New Testament
where we find these words. There he hung on the cross. Why
was he put on the cross? Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. He
redeemed us by taking the curse of God's law from us. He was
cursed in order to deliver us from the curse. And 1 Peter 3.18
says, he died the just for the unjust. So the Lord Jesus Christ
is the righteous one and he died for the unrighteous ones, the
just for the unjust. He says in 1 Peter 3.18, he died
the just for the unjust to bring us to God. In other words, Christ
died to remove the barrier that my sins caused in putting me
in estrangement from God, making me an alien to God. Christ took
my sin and suffered and died for my sin in order to reconcile,
to bring me to God, to establish peace between me and God. And
this is what the death of Christ is about. It's about him substituting
himself to bear the curse for our sins to reconcile us to God. And so in 1 Corinthians 15, it
says Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. to
the scriptures. So we know clearly the New Testament
reveals that the Lord Jesus Christ died not for himself but for
our sins. Death is the weight of sin. His
death was the payback for our sins. He, it says in 1 Peter
2.24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree,
that we being dead to sins should live into righteousness by whose
stripes we were healed. So these scriptures are so numerous
in the New Testament, and it's a good thing they are. I don't
know about you, but sometimes I'll read one or two scriptures
and I wonder, have I made up that doctrine myself? Or is this
something really taught in the Word of God? Well, here's something
that's taught in the Word of God in so many places that we
cannot, it can't be swept aside. It stands like a rock that can't
be moved when all the storms of our doubt and our our fears
and everything in life would assail that truth that Christ
died for our sins. Scripture stands unmovable and
unshaken and outspoken so that it's evident that the Lord Jesus
Christ suffered not for himself but for the sins of his people. In Isaiah 53 verse 8 it says
that, for the transgressions of my people was he stricken. There you have it. He was wounded
for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. And all of these things teach us that the Lord Jesus
Christ suffered on the cross for our sins. Now, it was on
the cross that he prayed and cried these words, My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? And so we know that the cry arose,
it sprang out of that agony of his soul, which he was suffering
because of our sins. And if he was suffering agony
for our sins, then when the sufferings ended, then the price, the payment
had been given, and God was satisfied. The sufferings didn't go on,
they didn't go on continuously, they ended. And he died, he was
buried, and he rose again, which is the testimony of God that
God justified him. And while Jesus was on the cross,
the men were mocking him and making fun of him, and they seemed
to find no greater pleasure than to prove that he was false, that
he was not the Lord's, that everything he said about his trust in God
and God's delight in him was false. And they delighted to
prove him wrong. They wanted to see him die. They
were happy to see him die. And when they buried him, they
thought it was over. But God justified everything
that he said and did, justified his sufferings, justified his
prayers. He justified him and with him all of his people when
he raised him from the dead. Now, this is the truth of Scripture.
We know these things are facts, are truths of Scripture, they're
facts that God has documented in Scripture, and this is the
greatest comfort for sinners. Because here we learn that God's
salvation depends on the work of one man. Notice in this psalm,
only one man is suffering. It's the one man crying, my God,
my God, why has thou forsaken me? Towards the end of the psalm,
it talks about, the congregation. He says, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation will I sing
praise unto thee. Now the one man who suffered
for the sins of many is singing and praising God because his
sufferings ended and God delivered him. He justified him. His sufferings made satisfaction
for their sins and God declared them and Him to be righteous
through those sufferings. His blood is our justification. We are, as Romans 5, 9 says,
we are justified by His blood. So we know that The Lord Jesus
Christ prayed these words, Matthew 27, proves these are the words
of Christ, a prophecy fulfilled in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In all of the scriptures, these
words of Christ are fulfilled in the New Testament, very plain
and undeniable. In Hebrews chapter 2 verses 12
and 13 is where he says, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. So we know that the apostle in
the book of Hebrews applies these words from this psalm, and in
all the gospels, these words are applied to the Lord Jesus
Christ. We can be absolutely certain, without a shadow of
doubt, that this is a psalm Christ spoke in prayer in fulfillment
of the prophecy here, and that he not only spoke it in prayer,
but his agony and sufferings was agony and sufferings at the
hand of God and men for the sins of his people. And that's such
a fundamental truth that we need to have this so clear that we
can go to the scripture and we can say to those who ask us a
reason for the hope that lies within us, this is the reason.
God has said it. I'm a sinner. I have no hope
before God in myself. When I consider myself, I have
to ask the question, what will I do about my sins? And then
beyond that, I wonder, all the things I've done wrong, what
will I do about that? I wonder, and what will I do
about the source of my sins, my evil nature? The spring out
of which all these sins come, Jesus said, it's out of the heart
of man. Fornication and wickedness and
covetousness and idolatry, they all spring from our heart. So
I've got my sins, and God will remember them. And my evil nature,
the source of my sins, what will I do about this? And we're sinners,
and what's God's answer? Can I come to God with my sins? Can He save me from my sins? That's why these Psalms are so
comforting. And so assuring, and so they
give us so much peace and joy because in them we learned that
our Lord Jesus Christ suffered as a surety, one who would provide
the full payment. And that payment was his own
life offered to God in sacrifice as a sin offering, bearing our
sins and suffering the consequences of them. So that the cry here,
comes out of that, that substitutionary, that vicarious work of Christ
suffering from God for his people, okay? So that helps us not only
to be assured that when we read this psalm, we are reading about
the success of our substitute. We're reading about God's will
being fulfilled in his sufferings. This was the will of God. It
was the will of God. last time from Acts 2.23. Him
being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."
That's Acts 2.23. It was clearly the will of God. And that's what it says here
in these first three verses. The Lord Jesus Christ suffering
untold agony of soul. What does it mean? What possibly
could it mean to be forsaken by God? Whatever it means, we
will never know it because the Lord Jesus Christ was forsaken
for his people in order that we might not be forsaken, but
that we might be reconciled. We might be brought to him. So,
never lose sight of what I would call the simplicity that is in
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's simple, it's clear, but
it's also the only truth on which we bank our eternal souls. Christ
died for sinners. Isn't that why he came into the
world? Isn't that what he said he would do? His name shall be
called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. So
here we see it, my God, my God, why hast thou, why hast thou
forsaken me? All of his disciples forsook
him. He expected that. Judas betrayed him. He expected
that. It fulfilled scripture, and he
told them they would do this. Peter denied him. He expected
that. But it's as if here it was unexpected. Why hast thou forsaken me? In 2 Samuel 24, verse 14, when
David was considering his options, he said, let me now fall into
the hand of the Lord, for with the Lord there's mercy. He had
hope that God would be merciful, but here the Lord Jesus Christ
is feeling forsaken by God. David had hope in his affliction. The Lord Jesus Christ here considers
what he is experiencing and I cannot describe it. All I can say is
the word here, Forsaken. Why have you forsaken me? To
be separated from God is the greatest agony of soul any person
could ever experience. And yet in this life, no one
experiences that. We sense it in our conscience.
When we sin and our conscience condemns us, we feel estranged
from God like Adam. But to think that we're separated
from God, that would be an agony beyond our ability to bear, isn't
it? and here the Lord Jesus Christ
bears it. Now I'm going to just add a footnote at this point
here concerning this sense of our being forsaken by God. A
footnote here. When we are given grace by God
to believe the gospel, that is to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ as our Savior, the One who alone did all necessary to
save us from every sin and to bring us to God, and to bless
us with eternal life, all the things that are part of salvation.
When we're given by God, grace to believe Him for that. Understand
this, that is not something a natural person can do, believing Christ. We cannot even begin to understand
how God could accept us for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and on the basis of His blood, and on the basis of His merit,
and on the basis of His obedience, consider what He did for us.
A sinner cannot a fathom that God would accept them for Christ's
sake, unless God gives us grace to do that. And here's the footnote.
Remember Cain? Remember Cain? When he killed
his brother Abel and he was driven out from the presence of the
Lord, he said, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Remember
that? Now, what was Cain? He was an unbeliever, wasn't
he? He was not a believer. He didn't know anything about
God's mercy. He killed his brother. He hated,
he envied and killed his brother. So he knew nothing of God's mercy
and it was proven by the fact that when he sinned, he did not
go to the Lord seeking mercy from the only one who could forgive
him, the only one in whom there is mercy. As David said, there's
mercy with the Lord. So this teaches us that when
a person, when any of us experience this conscience, this conscience
of guilt, unless the Lord gives us grace, we will feel a measure
of this being forsaken, as Cain did. And you can see this throughout
scripture. Think about those men who brought
the woman taken in adultery to Jesus. Those men didn't ask Jesus
for forgiveness. They were sinners just like she,
but they could only accuse her to Jesus. They delighted in thinking
about the punishment either she would receive or that they would
prove Christ false and humiliate Him in front of the crowd. They
were not seeking mercy and they left without getting mercy. And so you can see here in this
little footnote of this being forsaken by God that the blessing
God gives to His people is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and in believing Him, what happens? Well, there's this uniting, there's
this reconciliation that takes place. Our conscience is sprinkled
with the blood of Christ and it is purged of our sins so that
we can see that in the Lord Jesus Christ, by his sufferings, we
as sinners can be accepted by God. That's the answer to the
question, what will I do about my sins? What will I do about
my sins? There's nothing I can do. The
Lord Jesus Christ did it for his people, and that's our only
hope. And so consider that this psalm is Christ and Him crucified,
okay? And then consider furthermore
in the same psalm that it's the Lord Jesus Christ lifted up and
drawing all of His people to Himself, as He said He would
do in John chapter 12 and verse 31 and 32. He would draw, He
said, speaking of His death on the cross, if I be lifted up,
I will draw all men unto Me, meaning not all men, without
exception, but all of his sheep. All of his sheep would be brought
to him. And his sheep are identified by the grace given to them to
trust Christ as sinners. Christ came into the world to
save sinners. The sheep of God say, yeah, that's
what I need. That's my only hope. I only have
one hope. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
back to these first three verses of Psalm 22. My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Now, I've pointed this out to
you before, but this is spoken of in Hebrews chapter five. In
Hebrews chapter five, it says, who in the days of his flesh,
speaking about Jesus, when he was in this world, in the days
of his flesh would be when he was in the world, in the flesh,
when he had offered up, notice these words, prayers, and supplications
with strong crying and tears unto him who was able to save
him from death, and he was heard in that he feared." Okay, the
result of that, he offered to God prayers and supplications,
but not just in a casual way, not in some kind of a stoic manner,
it was with strong crying and tears. That's what's spoken of
in Psalm 22. And it says that he was heard
and that he feared because he paid all of the honor due to
God in love with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. And
that's the definition of the fear of the Lord. He showed a
reverence toward God by his whole soul obedience, whole body, soul,
mind, and strength obedience. And so he says, because he feared,
he was heard, And even though he was the son of God, he learned
obedience by the things which he suffered. As a man, he learned
them. As the son of God, he didn't need it to learn, because he
knew. But he learned as man, and being
made perfect, Being made perfect, he became the author of eternal
salvation. Alright, so the sufferings of
Christ were part of what pleased God he must endure in order to
be the author of eternal salvation. And those sufferings are expressed
in his strong crying and tears. So here we see the Lord Jesus
Christ crying. We see him in tears, and he was
crying in tears. Do you notice that in the account
in the Gospels, in the Gospel accounts, there's no mention
of the Lord Jesus Christ crying except in Gethsemane. Well, there
is throughout Scripture, there's different places, but in his
sufferings, when the soldiers hit him in the face, it doesn't
say that he cried. When they ripped the flesh from
his back with a whip so that his bones were seen, it doesn't
say then that he cried, not to men. When Peter forsook him,
he didn't cry. When Peter denied him, he didn't
cry. When his disciples forsook him, it doesn't say that he cried
then. But when he was forsaken by God,
when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane and he sweat great
drops of blood, when he sweat, as it were great drops of blood
falling to the earth. And then he said, my soul is
exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. He was sorrowful then.
He was a man of sorrows. And here we read in Hebrews chapter
5, verse 7 through 9, that he prayed with strong crying and
tears. So even though it may not have
been recorded in the Gospels, throughout the sufferings of
the Lord Jesus Christ, within himself, he was crying, was strong
crying, and tears, and roaring, as it says in verse one here.
Why are you so far from the words of my roaring? Again, when we
think about these words and we try to to look into them and
understand them. We have to admit, we really know
nothing about what's being spoken here. How can we possibly say
what it means to be forsaken? And how can we possibly say what
he felt and how he cried in the shedding of his own blood for
sinners? We can only read about it. We
can only read, we can look at a distance, as it were, at the
work of our Savior. And we have to trust that God
required it, God accepted it, because the Lord Jesus Christ
did what he did for us perfectly. Okay? So, let's go on to verse
3 of Psalm 22. Notice, he says, He cries out, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime,
but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and I'm not
silent. What did he do when he was in trouble, when he was perplexed,
when everyone had left him, and when this darkness was over all
the earth, and God had forsaken, what did he do? He didn't cry
to another. He didn't seek human help. He
cried only to God. He trusted in the Lord. He sought
mercy and help and strength and salvation. from the Lord alone. And so we see that in his cry.
He prayed to his God, and that's why he was heard. And in verse
three, notice, while he's experiencing these things, he vindicates God
in the way he was being treated. He justifies God. He speaks that,
he says this, that God is doing what's right. Notice in verse
three, but thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of
Israel. He speaks about God's holiness. Now, think about this for a minute.
Who required this? Well, we might say that the sinful
men, the Sanhedrin and the high priest and Herod and Pilate and
all the soldiers, they required it because they had a lust for
his blood. They hated him without a cause.
So in a sense, they required it, but that's not what I'm asking.
Who really required it? Why did they so accurately, so
precisely fulfill all that was written of him? when he was turned
over to their will? Well, it's because the Lord required
it. Remember in Romans chapter 4
and verse 25, he was delivered for our offenses and he was raised
again for our justification. Why was Christ delivered? For
our offenses. But who delivered him? Well,
back to Acts 2.23, him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. Who delivered Christ up
to these men? Who delivered him to be betrayed
and denied, betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, turned over
to the soldiers Judas, and then tried in a mock
court in the court of the high priest, and then at Pilate's
court, and then at Herod and his soldiers and the men of war.
Who allowed this to happen? It was the Lord. The Lord is
the one who did this. So he says, but thou art holy.
Now, when did God determine this? Well, we know that whatever God
does, he determined from before the foundation of the world.
Acts 15, 18 says, known unto God are all his works from the
foundation of the world. So whatever God does in time,
he determined before time, right? And if God determined it before
time, then no one suggested to God that he do this, because
no one was created yet. Devils weren't there. People
weren't there. There was nothing there. There was no dirt, no
water, no sky, no clouds, no sun, no stars. There were no
plants, no air, nothing but God. And God determined this before
the foundations of the world were laid. Therefore, we know
that this is God's idea. It sprang from his nature, from
his character. All right, look at the words
again, but thou art holy. What are we seeing then in the
death of Christ? We're seeing the will of God. We're seeing the work of God. We're seeing the hand of God.
This is God's doing. and it's holy because it's God's
doing. It's pure God. God delivered
his son and he delivered him for our offenses, Romans 4.25,
and he raised him again for our justification, Romans 4.25. In
Romans 8, 32, it says that, he that spared not his own son,
God the Father did not spare his own son, but delivered him
up for us all. How shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? So who delivered up his son?
Who didn't spare his son from this punishment of being forsaken
by God and being tortured? and cruelly treated and mocked
and in the most shameful way and painful way put to death
on the cross by the mob, by the politicians, by the religious
leaders, by everybody and forsaken by his friends. There was no
one to help him, no one to comfort him. He was left without help,
without strength, without a word from God. He was left alone by
himself. He bore our sins and by himself
he purged our sins. And so it was God alone dealing
with his son. He did not spare him, but he
delivered him up for us all. How shall God who did that not
give us everything? Because he delivered up his son.
If he gave his son, he gave all. And if he gave his all in his
son, what else is everything else? It's nothing in comparison.
He gave his son. So it teaches us that the death
of Christ As a substitute for His people to deliver them from
their sins was God's idea, it was God's will, it was God's
work, His promise, and He fulfilled it. Salvation is all God's doing. We make no contribution. It's
all of God. It all springs from Him and it
is holy. It's an eternal work, an eternal
will, and it has no end in its efficacy and its blessing. God
will never stop giving to His Son because Christ gave His all,
gave Himself for us. So it's a holy thing and therefore
we see God in the crucifixion and in the resurrection of Christ.
We see God in Christ when he gave himself out of love for
his father and in love for his people. We see God. So God is
holy. He makes himself known this way.
This is how we know God in his holiness is in Christ and him
crucified. You see, everything we know about
God is seen in his brightest glory in the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Well, for example, what do you
mean? Well, for example, God is holy. It was all the display of God's
perfections, His wisdom, that He would allow men to do what
they want and in all that they did accomplish His perfect will,
so that the wrath of man would praise Him. All they did, they
did out of wrath, and yet the wrath of man, praise God, so
that every word they spoke and everything they did made known
the love of Christ for his people. and made known the perfection
of God's word and scripture that in the wisdom of God he determined
this and accomplished it even though men did what was in their
wicked hearts. God turned their evil into good
and set forth his holiness in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
for his people. That's amazing, isn't it? Everything
about God is seen in the cross. And so he says, but thou art
holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Israel,
who are they? They're the children of promise.
They're the elect of God. They're those who are the sheep,
the ones God saved by Christ, the redeemed of the Lord. They're
His nation. They're the ones God has loved
for the love, not for anything in them, but because He would
love them. These are all the things, when we talk about Israel,
that God is speaking about here. His people. They're the ones
who praise him. And why do they praise him? Because
he offered up his son for their sins and saved them to the uttermost
by the Lord Jesus Christ. They offer up praise to God.
Remember Revelation 1 5 unto him who loved us and washed us
from our sins in his own blood. There you have it. The praise
of Israel. God inhabits the praises of his
people. When we praise God, I mean I'm
not talking about just saying praise the Lord, but when we
in our heart as sinners see what God has done in the atoning work
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he has put away our sins and
he has overcome our enemies, all of our sins, our sin nature,
the devil and his kingdom, this world, everything, death and
hell and the grave, everything is accomplished by the Lord Jesus
Christ in his death. And when we see those things,
when God makes them known to us so that we actually understand
and believe them, what happens? There's this peace and this joy
and this gladness of thanksgiving. And we naturally, it springs
from us. God does this. We say, thank
God for Christ, that I could trust him, that I could come
to God by him. and that he would receive me
for what he thinks of his son. All these things flow together
and produce this praise in the heart of his people, the Israel
of God. And that's where God lives in
the praises. He inhabits the praises of Israel
and their praises spring out of the revelation of what Christ
did on the cross. You see that? The Lord Jesus
Christ leads the praise. Under the agony of his soul,
he justifies God. He speaks well of him in all
that he did. He took delight and satisfaction
in the fact that he was doing the will of God. And this is
why He endured. It says, for the joy that was
set before Him, in Hebrews 12, verses 1-3, for the joy that
was set before Him, He endured the cross. The joy of saving
His people, and bringing them to Himself, and clothing them
in His own righteousness, and washing them from their sins,
and giving them all that was His. That joy allowed him to
endure the cross, and he despised the shame, he counted it worth
everything to have his people for himself, to make known God's
glory, that he was holy in all that he did in this, that gave
him great joy. Okay, so let's go on. It says
in verse four, notice Psalm 22 verse four, our fathers trusted
in thee, they trusted and thou didst deliver them, they cried
to thee and were delivered, they trusted in thee and they were
not confounded. Now, who is praying here? Who
is speaking? The Lord Jesus Christ. Who is
he speaking about? The fathers who trusted God.
And what did he say? They trusted in God and he delivered
them. They cried to him and he delivered
them and trusted and they were not left in confusion. They were
not disappointed that they trusted God. They weren't left expecting
their Their expectations were broken because they trusted God
and hoped that he would do what he said and he didn't do it.
They were not disappointed at all. They were not ashamed of
their trust. Now, this is Christ under the
agony of his soul, reflecting back on the confidence and trust
that the fathers had in his God, right? And so what is he saying
here? Well, the first thought we think
of is that he's taking comfort in the fact that the God he trusts
answered the fathers, but there's a lot more to it than that. What
was their trust? For example, Abraham. What was
Abraham's confidence? Wasn't it that God would send
his son? and he would be born as Abraham's
seed. In other words, he would be born
to Abraham, and that God would give him all the promises, and
that he would be the one who would fulfill the covenant that
would bring those promises upon all of Abraham's spiritual children. Isn't that what Galatians teaches?
That Abraham believed God would justify the ungodly. I'll read
this to you in Galatians chapter three. so that you see what was
Abraham's trust. He says in Galatians chapter
3 and verse 6, Even as Abraham believed God, and it was counted
to him for righteousness, know ye therefore that they which
are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham, and the
scripture, here are the words, foreseeing that God would justify
the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham,
saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So what is the gospel
here? That God would justify the heathen. So the gospel is the message
of justification, isn't it? And how would God justify the
heathen? Well, we know that he would justify them through the
Lord Jesus Christ. He would justify the heathen
through faith. They're looking to Christ. That's the result
of God's grace toward them. And the gospel is how Christ
died. Back up to chapter 2, verse 21,
I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ died in vain, is dead in vain.
So the justification is by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
because he doesn't die in vain. And if he didn't die in vain,
then he obviously accomplished the work God gave him to do.
They're justified by the death of Christ. And so Abraham was
given to know that in Christ, in his seed, all the nations
of the world would be blessed. All of God's people in all the
nations of the world would come to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and they would be given the blessing of righteousness
and justification by Christ because of his work. So that Abraham
trusted that God would accept him and justify him for Christ's
sake, because of his obedience and not because of his own. Now,
that was Abraham's basis of trusting God. He trusted that God would
justify the ungodly. Romans 4, verse 5. He says, but
to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly. That chapter, chapter 4 of Romans,
is about Abraham's faith. Abraham believed God would justify
the ungodly. And that justification would
be the declaration of God saying that Christ's righteousness for
you is your justification before God. And in believing that, we
know that. We come to experience the joy
and peace of it. That was the trust of the fathers. They trusted in God to receive
them for the obedience and death of his son in our nature as the
seed of Abraham, right? Now look at the verse again in
Psalm 22. Our fathers trusted in thee,
they trusted and thou didst deliver them, they cried to thee and
they were delivered, they trusted in thee and they were not confounded.
What is he doing here in his prayer then as the suffering
substitute for his people, as the surety who stands alone before
God to answer every accusation and charge against them and to
bring them without fail to God? What is he saying here in his
prayer? He's saying the fathers trusted
according to God's word and revelation that he would provide his son
and offer him up and in him justify his people. And so he's praying
this way because this is God's will and God's promise that he
suffer this way. They trusted and they were delivered.
They cried and they were not confounded. So God is faithful
and Christ is praying according to God's own faithfulness to
his promise to his word in scripture concerning what he would do by
the Lord Jesus Christ to save his people from their sins. And
he's using that now in order to, as the basis, the warrant
of his prayer to God to deliver him from his own sufferings. Because his sufferings would
meet the required satisfaction to God's justice. And once he
met that in his sufferings, then he would fulfill his promise
to the fathers. They trusted that he would. They
weren't confounded. They cried and he delivered them.
And it was all on the basis of what Christ would pay them. It
says in Romans chapter 3 that the righteousness of God was
made known in the passing by of the transgressions that came
before. So even though Christ had not yet died, had not yet
been offered, and had not yet been raised from the dead, God
had justified His people in Him already, and they trusted that.
And so he's praying here according to the will of God that he would
offer himself and God had already pledged in his word and by promises
and it was the trust of his people that God would do this, what
he's speaking of in Psalm 22, he would do it and that is the
basis here which Christ is praying. They trusted, they cried, he
delivered them, they were not left confounded. But notice in
verse six, Psalm 22 verse six, but I am a worm and no man, a
reproach of men and despise of the people." So here, the Lord
Jesus Christ, he mentions the trust of the fathers. He's bringing
out God's faithfulness, that He's now bringing this upon Him
in order to fulfill that Word, and to fulfill His righteousness
in the way He overlooked their transgressions for Christ's sake
back then. They looked forward to the cross,
He forgave them for Christ's sake, that was their confidence,
Christ and Him crucified, just as it is ours looking back to
the cross. But he says, as for me, I'm a
worm, not even a man, a maggot is what the word is, and no man,
a reproach of men and despise of the people. Look at where
he is. He is looked upon as the very
worst of sinners by these people. They want him to be put to death
by God's own hand, and they're assuming that because they have
power over him, God is allowing them to treat him this way in
whatever way they want to. The imaginations of their heart
are only satisfied when they are able to bring the worst and
the most cruel and merciless death to the Lord Jesus Christ,
to bring the greatest suffering and grief and shame and pain
to Him. Only then will they be satisfied.
And so he says, in the eyes of God and in the eyes of men, I'm
nothing, I'm less than a man. He stooped so low when he, who
is equal with God, took on our nature and became a servant to
all of his people. But how low he stooped, who can
know it? Who can know how low he stooped?
It was seen in the cross when he cries these words, God has
forsaken me. I cry in the daytime, he doesn't
hear me. My help from God is, it seems,
I have no help. He doesn't hear the words of
my roaring. The father's trusted, I'm relying on God's will in
my own suffering to be the answer for them. And yet he says, but
I have to go through this. I'm a worm and no man. Despised,
a reproach of men, despised of the people. Verse seven, all
they that see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip,
they shake the head. This is what they delighted in.
They delighted in scorn and mocking. You've probably experienced this
sometime in your life where somebody was the object of scorn and mocking. Maybe you were. Maybe there was
something that you did or said or just maybe because the way
you looked. Maybe because the way you acted or walked or something
like that as a child when you were in school. That school's
cruel. And you get a sense of what it's like to be looked at
by a crowd of children and mocked and nowhere to hide. But here,
the Lord Jesus Christ is mocked by these wicked men. These men
who have no respect for God, no respect, and they should be
exposed for their evil and shamed. And they're the ones who should
have been suffering. And yet they're the ones who
are allowed to mock him and scorn him. and say whatever they want
to without any reprisal. It says in 1 Peter 2 that when
he suffered, he threatened not. He didn't bite. He didn't come
back at them. When he was reviled, he reviled
not again, but he committed himself. He trusted the Lord. All the
time, in all of his sufferings, he justified God. He spoke of
his faithfulness, he spoke of his own humiliation, that it
was God's will, it was appropriate, it was good that God do this,
and he wanted to do it because of his love for his people. And
even though he was nothing, he was lower than a man in his own
eyes, in the eyes of the people, and bearing our sins in the eyes
of God, These men allowed to laugh him to scorn and shoot
at the lip and wag their heads, shake their heads at him and
accuse him of being untrue and a hypocrite by saying, he trusted
the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him now,
seeing that he delighted in him. If he really trusted the Lord,
do you think the Lord would allow him to go through all this? That's
what they were thinking. And I wanna look at that next
time, which won't be next week, but it'll be two weeks from today,
I think, two weeks from this Thursday, which is, let's see,
21st plus seven, 28th of July, okay? All right, we're gonna
look at that next time, let's pray. Father, we know that the
Lord Jesus Christ suffered all that he did for our sins. He
suffered the forsaking of God because we deserve to be forsaken
by God. but he was forsaken that we might
not be forsaken. He bore humiliation that we might
wear the robe of his righteousness and be washed of our sins. He
had such a desire for his people that he was willing to suffer
the humiliation and forsaking from God that they deserved in
order to spare them from the humiliation and the shame of
their sins. What a Savior! What love from
one so high to those of us who are so despicable and so low
in ourselves that we would wonder how God could look upon us And
yet the Lord Jesus Christ has made it so that God... He made
it so that when God does look upon us with favor and grace,
it's according to righteousness. But it was all God's doing, determined
before the world began, that He would offer up His Son, and
not spare Him and deliver Him for us all, and that He would
not stop there, but He would bring us to Himself, justify
us by the blood of His Son. Lord, give us this grace now.
According to that grace by which you offered up your son, according
to the righteousness that he fulfilled, according to the blood
and the offering, the blood that he shed and the offering that
he gave, we pray, Lord, give us grace now to see him and trust
him. Keep us from our sins. Bring
us to Yourself. Show us Yourself now. Help us
to walk in this life declaring our hope to be Christ and to
glorify Him. And help us to join Your congregation
in praise all the days of our life. Don't let us fall away.
And don't let our foot slip. But help us to trust Jesus all
the time. In His name we pray. Amen.