Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
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for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us for this message from the Bible,
from God's Word. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, turn to the book of Psalms, Psalm 22. That's where I'm going to begin.
I have two messages that I want to preach, actually out of these
three Psalms, Psalm 22, Psalm 23, and Psalm 24. And it's sort
of an overview of this. You know, many people know the
23rd Psalm. That's one that's quoted quite
often. And I'm asked about it quite often too. I've preached
on it many times. The Lord is my shepherd. But
what I want you to see is how these three Psalms go together.
And I've entitled this message, Jesus Christ, Priest, Prophet,
and King. Jesus Christ, Priest, Prophet,
and King. And that's what these Psalms
are about. A lot of times when we read the Bible, we just skim
over things that are just so important. We shouldn't do that.
We ought to read it carefully. We ought to read it prayerfully.
We ought to ask the Holy Spirit to open our understanding and
apply it to our hearts. Here are three Psalms that literally
go together. Somebody asked me, he said, well,
do you think David, who is the human instrument that God used
to write these Psalms, do you think David intended it that
way? Well, I can't climb into David's mind and tell you what
he intended, but I can read these Psalms and I see as these apply
to the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation. by the grace of God
in him for his people, how they go together. And I believe it
was by the providence of God that these three Psalms were
written. Obviously, the Bible is the inspired, the verbally
inspired inerrant word of God. But here's what I'm saying. If
you look at Psalm 22, it's the longest one, and I won't have
time to go into every verse, but I just want to kind of give
you an overview of this. Psalm 22 is a, and these things
apply to David personally, but in a greater way, a more fulfilled
way to the Lord Jesus Christ prophetically. So when you read
Psalm 22, understand that David is not just speaking of himself,
but he's speaking prophetically as inspired by the spirit of
the future coming High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ in Psalm
23. He's speaking of the future coming Messiah as the good shepherd. That would be his prophetic office.
And then Psalm 24, he's speaking of the future coming Messiah
in his kingly office. Now, those three offices, priest,
prophet, and king, they form what we call the mediatorial
offices of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the one mediator between
God and men. That's what the scripture says.
There's only one mediator. Christ said in John 14, six,
I am the way, the truth, the life. No man cometh unto the
father, but by me. So that for salvation, who do
we seek to come to for salvation? Jesus Christ, the Lord, our righteousness. Jesus Christ alone. He's the
only savior. He shall save his people from
their sins. He is the only one who's appointed
of God to do so. He's the only one who's qualified
to save his people because he is God in human flesh. And he's
the only one who's willing to do what it took to save his people,
which was to stand as their surety and substitute under the law
the curse being made sin by the sins of his people imputed, charged
to him, and dying on that cross to save his people from their
sins. So he's the only mediator. You
see, there's no other mediator. Mary is not a mediator. The saints
who have died are not mediators. You don't pray to her or to them,
you pray to God through Christ. You come to God through Christ
on the basis of his blood and righteousness. And so what does
it, what is he as the mediator of his people? He's the believer's
high priest. Remember the high priest of Israel
under the old covenant. There was the only one, he was
of the tribe of, he was the descendant of Aaron and he was the only
one who was appointed by God to enter into the holy of holies
with the blood of a lamb and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat.
All of that was a picture of Jesus Christ the high priest
of his people. In Psalm 22, we see in prophecy,
David writing these words prophetically, showing that this is Jesus Christ
performing the office of a high priest through his sacrifice. And then the second office is
his prophetic office. He's not only the believer's
high priest, he's the believer's prophet. And that's what Psalm
23 is about, the Good Shepherd. Now we'll talk about that later
on. But the Good Shepherd is a way
of describing, metaphorically, CHRIST'S PROPHETIC OFFICE, WHICH
MEANS HE IS THE WORD OF GOD, THE COMMUNICATION OF THE WORD
OF GOD. HE GATHERS HIS SHEEP THROUGH THE PREACHING OF THE
WORD. AND THEN PSALM 24 IS A DESCRIPTION OF HIS KINGLY OFFICE. BASED UPON
HIM PERFORMING THE DUTIES OF HIS PRIESTLY OFFICE, HE WAS EXALTED
AS KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. And so we'll see this
as we just kind of survey these. But let's look at Psalm 22, and
it starts out this way in verse one. And if you know anything
about the Bible, you'll recognize this right off. Psalm 22 in verse
one says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me? and from the words of my roaring.
Verse two, oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest
not, and in the night season I am not silent. But look at
verse three, but thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises
of Israel. Now you notice right off, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? You know those words were
repeated by the Lord himself as He was on the cross, dying
for the sins of God's elect. Over in the book of Matthew,
chapter 27, in verse 45 it says, now this is the Lord hanging
on the cross, dying for the sins of His people. And it says, now
from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until
the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus
cried with a loud voice saying, and it's recorded in the King
James Version in the original language that David wrote it
in, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That's the language. That is
to say, interpreted, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? Now listen to what happens here
in Matthew 27, 47. Some of them that stood there when they heard
that said, this man calleth for Elias or Elijah. Cause he said
Eli, Eli. In the original language, what
does Eli mean? It means my God, my God. And when they heard it, they
didn't know that language. You see their language was different.
At this point in time in their history, their language was basically
what we call Aramaic. not the original Hebrew language. And so they didn't understand
it. And they didn't know the Bible. They didn't know the Hebrew
scriptures. So they said, what is he saying?
Is he calling for Elijah? And verse 48, and straightway
one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and
put it on a reed and gave him to drink. The rest said, let
us see whether Elias will come to save him. They thought he
was calling for Elijah the prophet to come and save him. That's
not what he was doing. He was quoting from Psalm 22,
that prophecy to show that he is dying as the Messiah, the
substitute performing the duties of a high priest. The high priest
was the one who brought the sacrifice. Christ is the believer's high
priest. Christ is the sacrifice. He's
the substitute. He's the surety. Christ is the
only way that God can be just and justify the ungodly. And
so back here in Psalm 22, he says, my God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? Do you know what's happening
there? It's an amazing thing. It's a mind-boggling thing. But
what happened on the cross is that God the Father actually
forsook God the Son incarnate. Why? It was because God the Son
incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, was made sin for His people. The sins of all of His people
were charged to His account. And what we see here, and we
can't really explain everything about it. We know the reason
why. We know the reality of it. But the father actually forsook
the son in order to show how God can be just and justify the
ungodly. When sin was imputed, laid on,
accounted to the Lord Jesus Christ, The father forsook the son because
God hates sin. And it's a mind boggling thing. That's how strong the doctrine
of imputation is. You see Christ on the cross,
he was not made to be a sinner. He was not corrupted or contaminated
with the sins of his people, but the sins of his people were
charged to him. And based upon that sin imputed
to him, it was necessary that the father forsake the son in
order that justice might be satisfied. And that is a mind boggling thing.
So we see Christ forsaken. That's the high priest of his
people presenting the sacrifice of his own self, his own body. He was made a curse for us in
order to satisfy the justice of God. And down here in Psalm
22, listen to this. In verse five, it says, they
cried unto thee and were delivered. or verse four rather, I'm sorry.
Our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted and thou didst deliver
them. They cried unto thee and were
delivered, they trusted in thee and were not confounded. And
then he says in verse six, but I am a worm and no man, a reproach
of men and despised of the people. Christ, the Lord of glory, God
in human flesh calls himself a worm. But that worm there is
an interesting word. You know, basically two words
in the Old Testament for worm. One of them describes a maggot. And that's the word that sometimes
is used to describe man in his sin. Over in the book of Job,
chapter 25, we see it. When Bildad the Shuhite was speaking,
and he asked this question in verse four. This is Job 25 in
verse four. He says, how then can man be
justified with God? How can a sinful man be right
with God? How is that possible? How can
God be just and still save me and forgive me and receive me
into His presence? Or how can He be clean that is
born of a woman? We're born in sin. We fell in
Adam. And we're born in trespasses
and sins. We're born spiritually dead.
We are sinners. And we have nothing to recommend
us unto God. And I've often, how many times
on this program, if you watch it regularly, I tell you about
what we call the total depravity of man. That we have no righteousness,
that we cannot work a righteousness, and we do not want righteousness
God's way. That's what total depravity is.
So he says in verse five, behold, even to the moon and it shineth
not, yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. God is perfectly,
sinlessly holy in every way. But then he says in verse six,
how much less man that is a worm. Now there he's talking about
a maggot. It's sickening, isn't it? Well, that's the metaphor
that's used to describe man in sin. And then he says, after
he says, how much less man that is a worm and the son of man,
which is a worm. Now that's a different word.
It's the same word over here in Psalm 22 in verse six, but
I am a worm. It's a worm that speaks, it was
a worm that they used to make a red dye. That's what they dyed
cloth in. It was used to use the garments
of the high priest that were red. That's this worm, it's a
tola. That's the Hebrew word for the
transliteration of it. But it was a worm that was used
for its blood, its color, so that it could dye cloth. And what that is, it's a worm
of sacrifice over in the book of Isaiah. Chapter 1 when he
says in verse 18, come now and let us reason together, saith
the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as
white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall
be as wool. That word crimson is the same
word for worm here in Psalm 22, six and over in Job 25. And it's
a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ as the sacrifice of his
people who shed his blood, his red blood, unto death in order
to establish a righteousness that would enable God to be just
and justify them, the ungodly." Now this Psalm 22 goes right
on through in describing the horrible things that Christ suffered
as the sacrifice of His people, establishing For them, the only
ground of salvation, which he as the high priest would present
to the father for their salvation, for their acceptance, for their
blessedness. And what is that which God requires? Well, it's righteousness. If
you'll skip on over to the last verse, the two verses of Psalm
22, listen to what it says here in verse 30. It says, a seed
shall serve him. Now the seed there is His children.
That refers to God's elect, the children of God, the children
of the King. These are the ones, this seed,
they are the ones whom Christ represented as their surety and
substitute on the cross. These are the ones for whom He
died. It's a seed and it says, this seed shall serve Him. They're
not gonna reject Him, you see. All for whom Christ died shall
serve Him. They're going to believe in Him.
You see, they're gonna be born again by the Holy Spirit. They're
going to believe in Him, they're going to repent of their works,
and they're going to serve Him in newness of life, as Paul described
it in Romans 7. They're gonna bring forth fruit
unto God. Christ is the vine, and we're
the branches. So a seed shall serve him, it
shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation." This is Christ's
people. The account is settled for them
by Him on the cross. When He was forsaken by God,
the Lord Jesus Christ did so in the place of His people. That's why He was forsaken. And
it was accounted to the Lord for a generation, his generation. That's the product, that's the
result, that's the fruit of his death. And listen to what verse
31 says. It says, they shall come and
shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born
that he hath done this. What a verse. They're going to
come and declare his righteousness. What is that? They're gonna preach
the gospel. They're going to proclaim the good news of salvation
by the grace of God through Christ, the Lord, our righteousness.
Remember Paul wrote in Romans 1 16 and 17, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God and the
salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first, to the Greek
or the Gentile also. And he says, for therein is the
righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is
written, the just or the justified shall live by faith. They're
going to declare his righteousness. And they're going to declare
it unto a people that shall be born. That's talking about the,
that's not talking about physical birth. That's talking about the
new birth. You must be born again by the
spirit. You gotta be given eyes to see
and ears to hear this message and believe it. love it, receive
it, submit to it. And he says, they'll declare
that he had done this. This is all the work of Christ.
Salvation is of the Lord. Now you notice there that when
Christ was on that cross, he was forsaken by the father. And
that was the legal separation between the father and the son
based on the sins of God's people imputed, charged, accounted to
him. Now, when I say that, a lot of
people will object, say, oh, it was more than legal. Yes,
I mean, what Christ suffered, what He endured on the cross
in that separation from His Father was more than just a legal matter,
my friend. It was, in fact, I'm not even
gonna try to describe it because we can't. What Christ went through
in his soul suffering, in his psyche, in his mind, in his body,
we can't describe that. It was something that was beyond
imagination. Nobody suffered like he suffered.
But it was all based upon the sins of God's people imputed,
charged to him. And that's why we call it a legal
separation. Now, again, these things are
mind-boggling. So Christ was forsaken, but he
didn't stay forsaken. And I want you to look with me
at 1 Timothy 3, verse 16. Listen to this. It says, and
without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God
was manifest in the flesh. That's Jesus Christ, the God-man.
God with us. the Word made flesh dwelling
among us. And he says justified in the
Spirit. He was vindicated. In other words,
when man, all of us, fallen humanity, judged him to be a sinner, judged
him to be a criminal, he was not. Those were false charges.
Now, he went to the cross in a just way because God had imputed
sin to him. And so what God did in forsaking
His Son was not unjust. Yes, Christ remained holy and
harmless and undefiled in Himself, but Christ was actually guilty
Not for sins he committed, not for sins that were transferred
to him in a way of being infused into him or contaminating him,
but he was guilty based upon the sins of God's elect charged
to him, accounted to him. He said, put it on my account.
I'll pay it. So what God did in forsaking
the Son was just, but what man did We intended it for evil. That's right. You with wicked
hands, Peter said. You did what God had determined
all along, but you did it with a wrong motive. We called him
a malefactor. But he was justified in the Spirit.
He was vindicated. He was seen of angels. Angels
attended him. He was preached unto the Gentiles.
That's the fulfillment of prophecy in the Old Testament. believed
on in the world, that's the fruit of His death, that people would
come to believe in Him, and then it says, received up unto glory. So though He was forsaken by
the Father, when He finished the work of redemption, paying
the price, settling the debt, establishing righteousness for
His people that's imputed to them, He was received up into
glory. He was resurrected from the dead.
He was received up into heaven. And he now seated at the right
hand of the father ever living to make intercession for us.
Now that's the fulfillment of his high priestly office. That's
why he was forsaken. Everything that Christ did in
his obedience unto death, he did for his people. And the scripture
says he was made sin, Christ who knew no sin for us, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And that's what
that Psalm 22 is about. In verse 31 there, they shall
come and shall declare His righteousness. My friend, you see, here's what
I'm saying. Those who believe, every sinner who comes to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ can say, I have a righteousness. that answers the demands of God's
law and justice. And this is this righteousness,
Christ, His merits, His obedience, and it's my only ground of salvation. It's the only thing that recommends
me unto God. My works cannot do it. My prayers
cannot do it. My baptism cannot do it. My charity
cannot do it. It's all Christ. When we sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. That's part of his mediatorial
work. That's the ground of it. Jesus
Christ, our priest. Jesus Christ, our priest, our
prophet, our king. That's the believer. And here
in Psalm 22, as fulfilled in Jesus Christ on the cross, we
see the whole foundation of the salvation of sinners, how God
can be just and justify the ungodly right here. And therefore, we
have a message to tell. And that's when we'll get into
Christ, the prophet in Psalm 23, and Christ the King, Psalm
24, what he does in his mediatorial offices. priest, prophet, and
king. We have a great high priest,
the writer of Hebrews wrote, and that's why we pray, that's
why we worship. We have a great high priest who
is passed through into the heavens. He was forsaken because of my
sins imputed to him. but he settled the matter, he
paid the debt in full, he satisfied justice, he made an end of sin,
he finished the transgression, he brought in everlasting righteousness,
and therefore he was raised from the dead and received up unto
glory, not as a private person, but as a substitute, as a surety
of God's people. Now he ever lives to make intercession,
and therefore we're persuaded that he's able to keep that which
we've committed unto him against that day. And what have believers
committed unto the Lord Jesus Christ in that day? Their whole
salvation. Don't commit any part of your
salvation to yourself, to your preacher, to your denomination.
Don't commit any part of your salvation to anyone but Jesus
Christ, the righteous. Jesus Christ, the great high
priest. He is it, and His priesthood
is forever, and His righteousness is forever, and it cannot be
contaminated or taken away. Hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you.