Okay, we're in Psalm chapter
22. This psalm is probably very familiar to you. It's probably
one of the most significant texts of scripture. It's one of those
texts of scripture that's easy to identify what the words of
it are referring to. And so we wanna go through this
psalm and pray that the Lord would make the gospel of Christ's
accomplishments for us, dear to us, because of what it cost
him. Now, in this psalm, it is a prayer, although it was written
by David, a psalm of David, it says at the beginning, it's written
as a prayer that is a prophecy of the prayer of the Lord Jesus
Christ when he was on the cross. So the Lord Jesus Christ used
these words in Matthew chapter 27, when he cried for the cross,
It says in Matthew 27, Eloi, Eloi lamas abachthanai, that
is to be interpreted, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? And that's the first verse of
this psalm. So you can see from that quotation that these are
the words of the Lord Jesus Christ that he spoke in prayer to his
God while he suffered for our sins. Now that's very significant. In Isaiah 53, we read how the
Lord would suffer. We read why he would suffer,
that it would be for the sins of his people. The entire chapter
describes his sufferings. He was wounded for our transgressions. He bore our chastisement. He
was stricken for the transgressions of the Lord's people. He was
numbered among the transgressors. He bore our griefs. He carried
our sorrows. He did all these things according
to Isaiah 53. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, as it says in Acts chapter eight, I think it
is, where the evangelist Philip was preaching to the eunuch And
the eunuch was reading from Isaiah 53, and it quotes it there, that
he was taken from prison and judgment. And all these things
are described in Isaiah 53 as a prophecy about the sufferings
of Christ, describing his sufferings, and a prophecy of why he would
suffer, that it would be for his people, as one who would
be made a sin offering for them. The Lord made his soul an offering
for sin, it says in Isaiah 53. And all these things... also
tell of his victory in Isaiah 53. For example, it says in Isaiah
53 and verse 12, the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. And it also speaks of his reward,
and that was in verse 11. It says in verse 12, speaking
about Christ's reward, therefore will I divide him a portion with
the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong. So
that's speaking of Christ receiving the reward of his obedience to
God in his suffering unto death for the sins of his people, in
satisfaction to God's justice, in answer to his justice and
in fulfillment of his law. And so because of that reward,
he would divide the portion with the great and divide the spoil
with the strong. And he's speaking there about
those who are strong in him, those who were made strong by
his strength, those who are called great because they are in Christ. That's all of God's elect. He
says, because he has poured out his soul to death, that's the
reason why he was rewarded. And he was numbered with the
transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and he made intercession
for the transgressors. So you can see in Isaiah 53 that
God describes the sufferings of Christ. He tells us why he
suffered. It was not for his own sins,
but for the sins of the people. And he tells in Isaiah 53 how
he would be successful, that the Lord's, the pleasure of the
Lord or God's will would prosper in his hand. And it tells of
his reward, his great reward given to him and to his people
because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with
the transgressors and bear the sin of many and made intercession
for the transgressors. So you can see in Isaiah 53 that
Christ's sufferings were for another. They were for a people
given to him by God to save, to bear their sins and he would
succeed in that and God would reward him and bless him with
his people for all that he accomplished. as it says in prophecy of Isaiah
53. Now, I mention Isaiah 53 because
in this psalm, Psalm 22, what we have here is not just a prophecy
about the sufferings of Christ, but we have the very words of
Christ who suffered as described in Isaiah 53. So if you could
think of it that way, it brings the point more to the center
of the intimacy in the mind of Christ and in his words. that
when he pours out his soul, as it describes in Isaiah 53, we
hear his own words under the agony he bore because of our
sins made to be his, and the suffering under that, the consequences
of those sins. And then also in Lamentations,
in Lamentations chapter one, it uses these words, Jeremiah
the prophet spoke these words, and historically they were spoken
when The people of Judah and Jerusalem were taken captive
by the Babylonians and all of that land and those people were
decimated. They were taken into captivity
and after the entire prophecy of Jeremiah, he wrote these lamentations
and this lamentation is him speaking, Jeremiah, of the people and their
captivity and the sorrow that he felt for their sake. And that
sorrow caused him such grief, but it again was a prophecy. And we know from 1 Peter 1 10-11
that these men who spoke as prophets spoke of the sufferings of Christ
and the glory that should follow. They spoke by the Spirit of Christ,
of His sufferings and His glory. So I say all that in order to
point you now to Lamentations chapter 1 verse 12 where it says,
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done
to me wherewith the Lord has afflicted me in the day of his
fierce anger. So the Lord has afflicted the
one spoken of in Lamentations with his fierce anger and he's
suffering more than any man. That's what he's saying here.
See if there be any sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me
wherewith the Lord has afflicted me. And so if you lay this on
top of Isaiah 53, you see that it pleased God to bruise him.
He chastised him and all that Christ suffered, it was at the
hand of God. It was his will and purpose.
And so not only that, but it also says in Isaiah 52, verse
14, that his visage or his physical appearance was so marred more
than any man." So in Lamentation 112, he sorrowed more than any
man. In Isaiah 52, 14, his visage
or his appearance was more marred than any man. And in Isaiah 53,
it was for the transgressions of God, the Lord's people. It
was by the will of God, his determinant counsel and will. It was by the
hand of God. He's the one who afflicted him.
He was wounded for our transgressions, and he was successful. the Lord's
purpose would prosper in his hand, the pleasure of the Lord
would prosper in his hand. He was rewarded and he was exalted
with his people. So all these things are brought
together in these Psalms that talk about the substitutionary
work of the Lord Jesus Christ bearing our sins as his own and
bearing the shame and the guilt of those sins and the shame for
that guilt. He was guilty before God because he bore our sin.
He did no sin. It says he knew no sin in 2 Corinthians
5, 21. And he did no sin in 1 Peter
2. And in him was no sin in 1 John
3 and verse 5. So it's clear that his sufferings
could not be for his own sins because he was holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners. But because he suffered
and died, we know it had to be for death because death is the
wages God pays back to sinners. So he gives them the reward of
their sin. Therefore, if Christ did suffer
and die, it couldn't have been for his own sins, but it must
have been for the sins of another, for his people. And that's what
Isaiah 53, Lamentation, Isaiah 52, these texts of scripture
that I've referred to. But in summary, all of the Old
Testament, according to Peter, chapter 1, 1 Peter 1 through
10 and 11, speak of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that
should follow. If we keep those things in view,
then when we reach Revelation chapter 4 and chapter 5 and chapter
7 and others that speak of the Lamb of God exalted to the throne
of God the Father, sitting with Him on His throne and all the
hosts of heaven, starting with the redeemed of the Lord, and
with them and outside of them from that inner circle are the
angels and so on, so that we see the host of heaven worshipping
God and the Lamb and the song of heaven. Heaven reverberates
with the song of the redeemed when they say, Thou hast redeemed
us by Thy blood out of every kindred. tongue, people and nation. And so this is the song of God's
people. What Christ has done in his sufferings
and praising him for the accomplishments that he made by those sufferings
in his death and the salvation he obtained for us and the glory
to him that would follow and the fact that we are glorified
with him. We are rewarded with the reward
that God gives to Christ because God gave Him this work to do
for His people, not only to wash them of their sins in His own
blood, but to clothe them in His own righteousness, which
was His obedience unto death, and also to give them the reward
of that righteousness, which is eternal life and eternal glory. All those things are given to
them by God freely because He gave His Son for them and because
Christ gave Himself for them, and nothing could be God could
reward them with nothing less than what Christ deserved in
giving himself, which is giving all of heaven when Christ gave
himself. Now I say all that in summary
of what surrounds this text in Psalm 22, but also to highlight
the fact that this Psalm is the intimate words of the Lord Jesus
Christ under the suffering that he experienced for our sins at
the hand of God. And the hand of God extended
to the things that men did to him so that he suffered at the
hands of wicked men. And so he suffered both in his
heart and soul, as we're going to see here, but he suffered
in his body. and he suffered shame and spitting,
he suffered the whip, he suffered so much that it's indescribable. He suffered, according to Isaiah
52, 14, his visage was so marred, more than any man, and in Lamentation
1, 12, his sorrow was greater than any man, and in Isaiah 53,
you can see why he suffered and what he accomplished by his sufferings.
Okay, so we're going to look at Psalm 22 in that light. It's
the intimate words of Christ in prayer to his Father under
the anguish of his soul when he suffered for our sins. And
we're going to see a lot of things there, but before I do that,
I want to remind you about the sufferings of Christ. First,
it was by the predeterminate counsel, predeterminate will
and counsel of God. You know what it says in Acts
2, verse 23, that you have taken him, Peter accused the Jews who
heard him preaching, he says, that you have taken him and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain, yet it was by the determinate
counsel or determinate will and counsel of God that this happened,
that this happened. You did all that was in your
heart. Pilate delivered Jesus to their will, and they did all
that was in their heart. And yet all that they did was
according to the specific and predetermined will and counsel
of God. So that's the first thing about
Christ's sufferings. It was by the will of God. And this is
important because as the believers in the early part after Christ
rose from the dead, they were vilified even at the cross. Think
of the cross. The men there were gathered together
to do all they wanted to do to Jesus. And here you are, a poor... trembling sinner, you have followed
Christ, you have believed that he was the Savior, the one God
sent, and here he hangs on the cross. And it appears he has
no power against his enemies. They seem to have the power.
He said he trusted the Lord, and yet it seemed like God wasn't
delivering him. Instead, he cries from the cross,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And so this would
shake the believer to his core, to his foundation. And that's
why God takes these Psalms and in the New Testament he says,
these were written about the Lord Jesus Christ according to
the will of God. It wasn't men who did what they
wanted. It was God doing what he wanted
through their wickedness because he had a double use for it. Number
one, he would bring good out of their evil. And number two,
he would hold them accountable for what they did and bring the
judgment upon them that he determined and that they would deserve.
OK, so that's the first thing. It was all by the will of God.
The second thing is that God, and I mentioned this just now,
that God would turn the evil that men intended and Satan and
his kingdom intended by the death of Christ into the greatest good. Men were granted a God-delegated
authority. Herod was a king, and the title
of king was given to men. They were able to exercise authority
over others according to God's delegated authority. And you
can read about that in Romans chapter 13 and 1 Peter, about
how we're to submit to God's delegated authority in our lives. But yet these men who were given
this God-delegated authority Herod, Pilate, the chief priests,
Annas and Caiaphas, and the centurions, all these men who had all of
this God-delegated authority. They made the greatest abuse
of their God-delegated authority and their position in the greatest
enormity of injustice ever done in history. So this was a huge
injustice. And then they not only did an
injustice, but they sought out liars who would be able to be
used to document what they were going to do, the reason for what
they were going to do, they made it all up. And they found these
men who were willing to lie so they could document this for
history in order to justify their actions and to cover up their
wrong. But it's all exposed. God made
sure that it was exposed to us in Scripture. But so they acted
together, not only individually, but together. They joined hand
in hand and arm in arm as a mob against the Lord Jesus Christ.
All these people, the Jews, the Sanhedrin, the chief priests,
Caiaphas and Annas, who were related by marriage, and And
then there were the Gentile rulers, Pontius Pilate and Herod. And you can see all these people
were gathered together as an angry mob. And they were acting
together. They were supporting one another
in their envy and their hatred. And they were doing it through
their political power. And through their religious power,
all of those were God-delegated positions, and yet they abused
their positions in the greatest abuse of power ever to be seen
in history. And so we see that men actually
do the worst that they want to do when they're allowed to do
it. God took his restraints off and they were given up. Pilate said he gave Jesus over
to their will and they did whatever they wanted to do with him. God
turned that greatest of evils into the greatest possible good. So that is what Joseph told his
brethren. Remember in Genesis 50 verse
20, he said, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.
All things work together for good to them that love God to
them who are the called according to his purpose, for whom he did
foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his son. So you can see this throughout history. The other
thing you see here that God turned the evil into good is that in
2 Samuel chapter 24 and verse 14, David was given three choices. Three choices, do you want one
of these three things? And he chose, he said, I want
to fall into the hands of God because there's mercy with the
Lord. Do not let me fall into the hands of man. And that's
2 Samuel 24 verse 14. You can read that account there.
But the Lord Jesus Christ was given into the hands of men. And so he trusted in his God
as his God and Father, and he committed himself into his hand,
and yet because he bore our sins and did so willingly, and he
submitted himself, yielding himself to whatever God would bring upon
him, according to his will, in order to bear the curse for our
sins, then the Lord Jesus Christ was given over to the hands of
these wicked men, even though David himself prayed, don't let
me fall into their hands. So you can see that Christ suffered
the greatest possible suffering. And the second thing is, is that
the Lord Jesus Christ suffered willingly. He didn't suffer against
his will. In fact, he says in Isaiah 50,
in Isaiah chapter 50 in verse 5, the Lord God hath opened mine
ear and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. Okay,
so God had given him this work to do, like the slave whose ear
was borne through with an awl, poking the awl through his ear
into the post, identifying him as a slave who loved his master
and would serve his master forever. The Lord Jesus Christ His ear
was opened in that way. And he was not rebellious. He
didn't turn back. He goes on, but he gave himself,
he says, I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them
that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame
and spitting. And that's Isaiah 55, I'm sorry,
verse 50, chapter 50, verse six. And so that in this submission
to God, it was the greatest act of the highest possible love,
a pure and holy love of selflessness, where he gave himself, yielding
himself in submission to God out of his whole heart, with
all of his strength, with all of his mind, with all of his
soul, he gave himself, he gave everything, like the law said,
you should love the Lord your God, you must, he commanded them,
with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and this is the
greatest of all commandments. So you can see that the Lord
Jesus did that. If you remember in John chapter 2, also when
Jesus cleared the temple, the money changers were there and
they were buying and selling these animals for sacrifice. And Jesus went in there and he
cleared that house out. He made a whip and he beat men
and he overthrew tables and he said at that time, the zeal of
thine house hath eaten me up." Remember those words? The zeal
of thine house hath eaten me up. And that's a quotation from
the Psalms as well. Well, those words, though, the
zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, describe how Christ had
a zeal for the will of God, and that zeal that he had for doing
the will of God would bring him to completely be consumed In
doing that will, he would be given over to the sacrifice for
our sins, giving himself over to it. It was a willing sacrifice. He offered himself to God. It
was a sacrifice of himself for our sins, given to God, so that
he held nothing back, he shed his own blood, and that blood,
that act of Christ, of obedience, for out of love, in obedience
to God, out of love for sinners, was an act that fulfilled God's
law, fulfilled God's will to save His people, washed them
from their sins, justified them before God, sanctified them,
perfected them forever, redeemed them, made remission for their
sins, was a propitiation to God, made atonement for their sins,
and everything that God says about the blessings that come
upon us were all obtained for us by the shedding of Christ's
blood, which he did willingly, and it was blood shed under great
sufferings of body and soul. So that's the third thing, that
it was sufferings of Christ were willing. The fourth thing is
that they were sufferings of shame. In the Psalms, in this
psalm in particular, in Psalm 22, verse six, it says, I am
a worm and no man a reproach of men and despised of the people. Now the Lord Jesus Christ in
his own character was above all reproach. There was nothing that
you could bring an accusation against him that was just. There
was no basis for anything that you could find wrong with him
because there was nothing. He told his enemies, which of
you convinces me of sin? I always do those things which
please my Father." So there was not even a shadow of sin or wrong
in him. No one could find fault with
him. And yet, wicked men did reproach him. They despised him. As it says in Isaiah 53, he is
despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. So in this verse, I am a worm
and no man a reproach of men and despise of the people, he's
describing himself through the eyes of the unbelieving men who
falsely accused him, who tried him without justice, who brutally
and cruelly and mercilessly afflicted him, persecuted him, and put
him to death, and then sat at the foot of his cross and mocked
him, taking his clothes and gambling for them in order to
show that they had spoiled him after they conquered him. All
of it was spoken here from their perspective. They thought they
had the victory and they were celebrating that victory, but
it was no victory. really. It was the bruising of
his heel, but it was not the crushing of his head. That would
come upon Satan and his kingdom. So Satan's design and the design
of those in his kingdom was their own defeat. And they would feel
that too, because Christ sufferings, though were a great shame to
Him, were a great victory for us, and therefore a victory for
Him, because He fulfilled the will of God and brought glory
to His Father. The other thing is that we see
about the sufferings of Christ is, and I've said this a number
of times, that they were vicarious. Vicarious. I don't use that word
often, but I like that word. I like it not because it's a
$10 word, but because it means that he was acting in the place
or as a substitute for someone else. He suffered vicariously,
not suffering for his own wrong, but suffering for the wrongs
of others, and his sufferings were counted to them. The credit
for his obedience was given to them. He did it vicariously.
He stood before God in the place of his people. He answered God
with the offering of himself. And he answered God in justice
with himself for our sins. He stood in the place of his
redeemed. He answered everything God required
from them. And he answered with himself.
He answered with his own sufferings and death that he gave to God
for them. It was for his people. It was
done in their place instead of them doing it, instead of them
obeying, instead of them suffering. And it was done on their behalf.
All of the benefits of his suffering and his obedience were given
to them. And that's called a vicarious suffering. It was for their life. It was for their eternal blessing
and eternal glory. He suffered, and his death were
the sufferings and the death of our substitute, the one who
is our surety, the one who obligated himself to God for us, with whatever
God would require from him, and that is why he's called the Lamb
of God. The Lamb of God. He offered himself.
He didn't protest. He committed himself to God in
the sufferings, and he never once counted anything that he
suffered as being more than what ought to be given to God, okay? And the other thing about Christ's
sufferings, and I've also mentioned this already, is that they were
successful. He suffered, he finished his course, and he is sat down. He's sat down now at the right
hand of God on high because he actually obtained the eternal
blessings that he gave his life to purchase. It was a redemption. His life was given as a ransom,
and he earned the freedom of all those he suffered for in
ransom, to ransom them from death and to give them the liberty
of sons and to give them the spirit of God as sons. So that's
the other thing. His death was not only a substitute,
it was a successful suffering. And the last thing I'll mention,
and we could go on and on about this, but to the Lord Jesus Christ,
he was exceedingly joyful because of what he would do in his sufferings,
what he would accomplish, who he would do it for, and how he
would obtain blessings for them, and how he would make them his
people and purify them by his own work, with his own blood.
It says in Isaiah chapter one and verse 18, though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. The Lord's sufferings
took our sins that were scarlet because our sins deserved eternal
death, therefore they were the color of blood. We had rebelled
against God, we had earned God's wrath, therefore we were crimson
in our sins. And yet, by the sufferings of
Christ, we are made white as snow, we are washed. And so this
made him exceedingly joyful because he loved the church and gave
himself for it that he might sanctify and purify it and present
it to himself a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ
accomplished in his sufferings and he sends his gospel now to
tell us about it and in the believing of that by the Spirit of God
we are washed in our conscience. We receive now in our present
life, the benefits of what he obtained then and accomplished
then. It's done. It was finished at
the cross. But the gift of it is given to
us through the gospel. The truth of it is made ours
when the Spirit of God persuades us with that life giving act
of faith when he gives us that life and that faith. OK, so. He trusted, he submitted, and
under this submission and trust he cried. But he didn't just
cry, he cried to God, the one he trusted. He willingly bore
our sins and he suffered for them. He wore humiliation that
we might joyfully wear the righteousness that he worked out for us, that
we might be completely washed of our sins. Our sins are completely
washed because he shed his blood. We contributed nothing to the
washing and the cleansing of our sins. We contributed nothing
to the beauty of his robe of righteousness that's given to
us freely. just being justified freely by
His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Romans
chapter 3 verse 24. And so we know that He wore humiliation
and He bore sufferings that we might be clothed in beauty. And
that's what we're going to see in Psalm 22. His submission in
trust and in all that he endured was vicarious. He did it for
sinners. His obedience in all that he
did was God's work so that it's God's righteousness that's made
known by his sufferings, by his redeeming blood. This is the
declaration, the setting forth, the manifestation of the righteousness
of God seen in the death of Christ. His obedience in all was God's
work and therefore it's called God's righteousness and Christ
is that righteousness. He's the Lord our righteousness
and by his trust in God, by his trust in God, what did he do? He submitted himself to the worst
possible shame and guilt, and suffering, you could imagine
that it seemed contrary to everything that any person would ever have
imagined ought to be done, and yet it was the will of God, it
was holy, and he trusted God, that he would not forsake him,
that he would uphold him, give him strength, and enable him,
and bring him through, make him successful, and give him the
reward of his people saved from their sins and saved from every
enemy because he suffered in their place. Now, all of these
things are true and we see them in this Psalm, in Psalm 22. In this psalm we hear him justifying
God, he says in verse 3, thou art holy, and in this psalm he
also says I will declare thy name unto my brethren, and that's,
let's see, where is it, oh that's in verse 22, which is quoted
in Hebrews chapter 2 in verse 12, we know these are the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ, And in this psalm he praised God
for the offering that he gave for him to give of himself that
he might make his people accepted in himself and his own sufferings
and death. And his people therefore praised
God and they praised Christ for all that he did in this. And
we'll see that in verses 23 and 26. Let's begin at verse 1 now. In verse 1, it says here, these
are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he hung on the cross,
there was darkness from noon till 3pm. It says from the sixth
hour to the ninth hour, there was darkness that covered the
whole earth. The Son of God, in our nature,
hung on the cross. Having been nailed there by the
hands of wicked men, they exercised all the evil that they could
imagine against him. They put him to death. Before
they did that, they put him to shame. They caused him excruciating
sufferings in body. They whipped him. They pummeled
his face. They spit in his face. They crowned
him with a crown of thorns. They put a mock reed in his hand
and they hit him on the head with it. They did all these things.
It was a reproach of the greatest kind. And when he received these
things, he hung on the cross and the sky became dark. It was
total blackness. And after that blackness, after
the darkness, these words were spoken from the Lord Jesus Christ
while he hung on the cross. He said, my God, My God, why
hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? He's not just praying weakly,
as we often do when we're in distress. We have no strength.
He is roaring. He is desperate, and notice here,
he doesn't cry to men. And when he spoke these words
on the cross, he said in Matthew 27, he says, and some people,
it says, thought he was calling for Elijah to come. but he wasn't
calling on men. He was calling on God. He says,
my God, my God. That's the interpretation of
what he said. Why hast thou forsaken me? Now it's important that we
understand this because look down a little bit further in
this Psalm in verse eight. It says he trusted on the Lord
that he would deliver him and this is spoken by those around
the cross, they were mocking him, let him, let God deliver
him, seeing he delighted in him. Now these men, they want to inflict
the greatest possible punishment. First of all, he's already broken
in heart. He's sorrowing and experiencing
all the rejection of men. Through his whole ministry, he
did only good to men. And yet he was betrayed by his
friend. He was forsaken by his disciples. And he was treated, and he suffered
soul sufferings in the garden when the blood poured forth from
him as sweat and dripped onto the ground. So he was already
suffering in soul, afflicted by God himself. And these men
are trying to increase that affliction by saying, he trusted on the
Lord. that he would deliver him. And
without saying it, they're implying, obviously his trust was futile,
in vain. He put his trust in a God that
cannot save, or that he did not truly trust God. Therefore, even
if the God that he's speaking about here is the same God they're
speaking about, they're mocking him and saying, you did not trust
the Lord. You said you did, but you didn't.
You're a hypocrite. And so they go on. He trusted
on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing
he delighted in him, he claimed God God was his father. He claimed
to be the son of God, that God was well pleased with him. They
heard him speak at the baptism. The apostles, Peter, James, and
John, heard him speak from heaven at the Mount of Transfiguration.
This is my beloved son, and whom I am well pleased. Hear him.
Hear ye him. So he did delight in him and
he told them. He wasn't ashamed to say, my
father delights in me. I'm doing his will. You're complaining,
you're finding fault, you hate me, but in complaining against
me and finding fault and hating me, you're hating my father because
these are his works that I do. So he said, I trust the Lord.
I trust my God and Father. He will deliver me. I trust him
to do that. And I am his delight. And they said,
OK, if you are, if you trust him and you are his delight,
then let him come and deliver you. So they were mocking his
trust. Now, in this we see in verse
8, while we're here, notice men put their trust in their God,
and they expect their God to deliver them. These men were
trusting, they weren't trusting the true God, they were trusting
the idols that made up gods of their imagination. They were
trusting their self-righteousness. They were trusting their system
of religion. They were not trusting the true
and living God. If they were, they would have believed Christ.
They would have believed Moses, who spoke of Christ. They would
have believed God, who spoke of his son. They didn't believe
him. So they were idolaters in heart, and that's what the Old
Testament says throughout about these men. And yet, they trusted
their God, and so they expected their God to deliver them. Christ
trusted the Lord, the true and living God, his Father, the one
he declares to us, the one who sent him to the cross, and he
trusted him at this time. But they could only see, they
could only believe in a God who would give them these good things.
They didn't believe this about God, the true God, so they couldn't
understand why Christ was there suffering. But notice, and here's
the verse I was trying to get to in verse nine, the Lord Jesus
Christ speaks of how long when he began to trust the Lord. He
says, but thou art he that took me out of the womb. Thou didst
make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts. So here
you can see that even from infancy, at the earliest life, Christ
trusted his God. Now, think about it. Here he
is at the end of his life, still trusting his God. He goes on,
I was cast upon thee from the womb, thou art my God, from my
mother's belly. Therefore, I have trusted you
all my life. When I was weak and had no strength,
I trusted you and you delivered me then. So he's building on
this trust that he has in God. And so in verse one, when he
says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We see here
a man who was a perfect man. Now, when we trust God, we trust
him as sinners, asking him to forgive us for Christ's sake.
and to help us we have no strength. But here the Lord Jesus Christ
has no sin of his own, and yet he himself is trusting God. He
has committed himself into the hands of God, his Father, because
he had undertaken to stand in our place. And he bore our sins. So he had to have, God had to
deliver him. God had to uphold him. And he
trusted him that he would. And he trusted him his whole
life through. But in this cry here, we hear that he's saying,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And if you take
this at what he said, then it would seem as if God had forsaken
one who trusted him, who was without sin and was perfect. So this creates a paradox. Was
God less faithful than the one who trusted him? Did God forsake
the one who trusted him? Could God say that he would never
forsake his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, his anointed, that he
would in no way ever forsake him? You can read about that
in Psalm 89. I'm just flipping over there to find a single verse
here to show you what it says there in Psalm 89. Let me get there. I'll just show
you an example of the promises given to Christ that God would
not forsake him. He said in Psalm 89, in verse
18, Three, I have made a covenant
with my chosen. I have sworn to David my servant.
Thy seed will I establish forever and build up thy throne to all
generations. The heaven shall praise thy wonders,
O Lord, thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints.
For who in the heaven can be compared to the Lord? Who among
the sons of the mighty can be likened to the Lord? God is greatly
to be feared in the assembly of the saints, to be had in reverence
of all them that are about him. And he goes on, he says, in the
same psalm he said Psalm 89 and verse 23, for example. for him forevermore, and my covenant
shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to
endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. Now, back
to the question. Was the Lord Jesus Christ as
a man trusting God, and yet God had forsaken him and broke his
promises that he would not forsake his son? How do we answer these
things? Well, you see that when the Lord
Jesus Christ experienced this as a man, he's expressing what
he felt, what he understood by all that was about him. Now,
we know that he understood the reason for his sufferings, we
know that, but at that time, what he felt in his soul was
a forsaking by God. But did God truly forsake his
son? Did he truly forsake Christ as
a man? These are questions that are
hard to really have confidence that we have the answers. Christ
said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But we know
God is not going to fail. He cannot lie, he can't break
his promises to his son, so no, he didn't forsake him. Not forsake
him eternally, but for a moment in Isaiah 54, he compares that
momentary forsaking as the flood of Noah in Isaiah 54. Chapter
54, let me read that to you. Isaiah 54, he says, for a small
moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I
gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face
from thee for a moment, But with everlasting kindness will I have
mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as
the waters of Noah to me. For as I have sworn that the
waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I
sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart,
and the hills shall be removed. But my kindness shall not depart
from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed,
saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. Okay, so now we can
see that what Christ experienced on the cross was not a permanent
forsaking. It was a momentary, as it were,
forsaking. It was something that he felt
as a man, that he was deprived of the comfort, the sense of
God's presence. And as a man, that's as far as
you can say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He
felt God had forsaken him because God brought that sense to him
as a man that he was forsaken by God. Now, we know God is faithful
and therefore that's why the Lord Jesus Christ himself did
not stop trusting God when all of the evidence was that he had
forsaken him. He felt it. All the people around
the cross were saying it. His disciples had left him. Everyone
turned their backs on him. And so he was feeling the full
outpouring of God's anger against him so that he could bear away
the wrath of God that was due to us. That's what a propitiation
does. He makes satisfaction to God's
justice so that God's wrath can be removed. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ had to be forsaken in that way in order for him to
remove our sins from us. So the death of Christ is about
that, the sufferings of Christ is about that, his burial is
about that. Our sins were taken by him, he
actually suffered for them, he died for them, and he was buried
with them. And he put them away in the grave,
okay? So he cries, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? He had only one hope. He had
only one helper. He did not cry for men. He did
not cry for someone else. He didn't rely on his own strength.
He trusted God no matter what, under judgment. Though he slay
me, yet will I trust him, as Job said in Job 13, around verse
15, okay? So he cried only on the Lord,
and yet the helper, the one he trusted, the one who alone could
save him from death, had forsaken him as man, and he felt it in
his soul. So that he truly felt the anguish
of one forsaken by God, and even though he felt that anguish of
being forsaken by God who is life and light, And comfort,
darkness, was covered the whole earth. Yet he said, out of the
darkness, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he
trusted in the Lord. He said, why art thou so far
from helping me? From the words of my roaring,
oh my God, I cry in the daytime, when it was light? all my life
from youth, and thou hearest not, and in the night season,
when darkness covered the earth, and I am not silent, I keep crying,
I keep trusting, my God, my God, he was utterly in the hand, and
at the mercy of God, because he bore our sins. He bore, he
felt in himself what a sinner, forsaken by God for his sins
would feel. He felt that, and yet, He never
stopped trusting God. He committed himself into his
father's hands. He goes on in verse 3, you can
hear him justify God. But thou art holy. Why was he suffering? Because
God is holy. Why would God uphold his promises?
Because God is holy. He trusted God in the perfections
of his nature. All that God is, he would not
compromise any one of his perfections, his attributes, he upheld his
word, he upheld his justice, and he made a way for his grace. Thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest
the praises of Israel, And then he goes on and he recalls to
mind from scripture, the history, the proof that those who trust
God are not forsaken. And he mentions these. And we're
going to take up the rest of this psalm next time because
I know that we're going to not be able to finish it tonight.
And I just want to stop here because it's about the time when
we need to in the study for tonight, and I want you to go back and
read this psalm and think about how the Lord Jesus Christ trusted
his God, trusted his Father as his God, as a man, perfectly
trust God, and because of his trust, What did he do? He submitted
himself. If he didn't trust God, he would
not have submitted himself and given himself up to the greatest
suffering of soul and body. He wouldn't have done that. And
if he hadn't trusted God, then we could not be saved. Therefore,
in the New Testament, it says that we are justified not by
the works of the law, but by what? the faith of Jesus Christ. Because he trusted God, we're
saved. That's amazing. Think on these things and we
will take this psalm up next time. Let's pray. Father, thank
you for your goodness to us. Thank you for your faithfulness
to your son. Thank you to your faithfulness to him who gave
himself for us, who rose from the dead, who is exalted to heaven's
throne and now intercedes for us. We pray, Lord, that you would
answer his every desire and fulfill all of your pleasure that would
prosper in his hand because he gave himself to do your will
and he is the one we trust. Lord Jesus, we trust you to save
us from our sins by your sin atoning death, by your resurrected
and reigning life, by your intercession. We know you will not fail. You
are faithful. You love your own to the end.
and you continue to love them through eternity. Lord, save
us from our sins and bring us to yourself, cause us to know
you even now by your spirit through God-given faith. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen.