All right, let's open our Bibles
to Psalm 22. The title of the message this evening is the message
of the cross. Cross is not just a series of
historical events that we can study, but it has a distinct
message, message of redemption in Christ Jesus. Psalm 22 is
the psalm commonly referred to as the psalm of the cross. We
know that there definitely are parts of this psalm our Savior
recited, he quoted from as he suffered there on the cross.
Many people say he quoted the whole psalm. I don't know if
he did that or not. If he didn't quote it, the whole
psalm verbally, it seems like that this psalm definitely was
the prayer of the Savior's heart. This was in his heart as he suffered
upon the cross. This psalm tells us the whole
message of the cross. Why was Christ there? And what
happened because of what he accomplished there? Psalm begins, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What depths of sorrow the
Savior was in to make that pride. But it ends with it is finished. That phrase here at the end of
this psalm, that he hath done this is it is finished. The Savior in this psalm goes
all the way from agony to victory. He has accomplished something
magnificent between verse one and verse 31. And that's what
I want us to see this evening. First, the message of the cross
is there is real suffering and death for sin. Verse one, my
God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from
helping me and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry
in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season,
and am not silent. Now this is Christ speaking to
his father as he suffers. But you'll notice he calls his
father. He doesn't say, my father, my father. He says, my God, my
God. Because as Christ was there suffering,
He was suffering under the hand of God, the judge of all. He
wasn't suffering under the hand of his loving father. This was
the judge of all, pouring out his wrath upon him. And he is
suffering like you and I can't imagine. He's not just praying
to God, he says he's roaring. He's roaring like an injured
lion. He's roaring like a lion in trouble. The lion of the tribe of Judah
is suffering. And he roars, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? This is something we cannot understand,
but it's God, the son, one eternally, one with the father. While he
was here on this earth, he said he never left the bosom of his
father. That he won with the father. Yet at Calvary, God the
Son was really, truly forsaken of His Father. That was His greatest
suffering, His soul's suffering. He was forsaken by His Father.
He endured the wrath of His Father. Now, we can understand Judas,
can't we? We can understand Judas forsaking
the Lord and betraying Him. If you're honest now, you can
understand that. If we're honest, we can understand
Peter forsaking and denying the Lord. We can understand that.
But his father? His perfect father? Yes, his
father. His father forsook him because
the father himself had made his son sin for his people. The father
made his son guilty of the sin of his people. And in his holiness,
he couldn't look on He had to forsake him. He withdrew his
presence from him. Look over in Isaiah chapter 59. Here's why the father forsook
the son. Isaiah 59 verse two. But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God and your sins have hit his face from
you that he will not hear. Christ was separated from His
Father at the cross because of His iniquities. He said, my iniquities
have gotten hold upon me, so I'm not able to look up. That's
how real Christ being made sin was. He said, they're my iniquities.
And it's iniquity that's separated between Him and His God. It's
sins that caused His Father to hide His face from Him. It's
sin laid upon Christ that caused the Father to not hear His prayers. The separation of the father
and the son, as Christ suffered, was so complete, the father would
not even hear his prayer, the prayer of his only begotten,
well-beloved son. God will by no means clear the
guilty. God said that of himself. He
wasn't just whistling Dixie. He made his son guilty of the
sin of his people. He by no means cleared him. but
He poured out all of His fury upon His Son without a hint of
mercy, without a hint of love, pure, strict, absolute justice. And the Savior asked, My God,
My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? He asked that question not
for His sake, but for ours. He knew the answer. It's because
His Father is holy. Verse 3. He said, But Thou art
holy. O Thou that inhabitest the praises
of Israel. That's why the father forsook
and punished his son because he's holy. He made his son sin
and he gave him exactly what that sin deserves. And this real
suffering of the Savior bought real salvation for his people.
You know, everyone who's ever been saved, everyone that God
has ever saved, they've all been saved the exact same way. Every
one of them. through the obedience, through
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. They've all been saved by faith
in Christ. Now that seems obvious to those
of us who live after the cross, but what about those who lived
before? They were saved the exact same
way you and I are. Verse four, our fathers trusted
in thee, they trusted, now just deliver them. They cried unto
thee and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were
not confounded. Our fathers, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, David, all the prophets. These men were not saved by keeping
the law. They weren't saved because they
were more moral or better than anybody else. They were saved
by Christ. Their sin was cleansed by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You say even before it was ever
shed at Calvary? Yes, sir. Even before it was
ever shed at Calvary. Because Christ is the lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. God can't change. Something happened in human history
didn't change God. He's always seen his people in
Christ. He's always seen his people as
pure and holy in his son and the sacrifice of his son. Now,
without a doubt, the death of Christ had to happen in time,
didn't it? And the death of Christ happened
in time because God purposed for it to happen in eternity.
All that's happening in human time is just the fulfillment
of God's purpose of redemption for his people. So in those Old
Testament believers trusted God, God delivered them because he
wouldn't deliver his son for them. He delivered them in Christ. When they cried unto God, they
were delivered. God heard their prayer because
he didn't hear the prayer of his son. God delivered his people
because he wouldn't deliver his son. God made his people not
guilty. because he made his son guilty.
That's why he heard them. That's why they were not confounded.
There was real suffering for sin and real death for sin at
the cross that brought about real salvation for God's people.
That brings me to the second point. This is the message of
the cross. Everything that happens at the
cross is the eternal will and purpose of almighty God. Now,
the natural man can never understand this. Never can we understand
that. How is it that we all do just
exactly what we want to do? But when we do, all we're doing
is what God foreordained for us to do. But that's so, even
though I can't understand it. By nature, this is what we think
about the cross. By nature, we think Christ died
on the cross as a sacrifice to us. That's what we think by nature. We think Christ died as some
sort of, you know, example or something and to make us feel
sorry for him. He died to draw some sort of
emotional response from us so that we might invite him into
our hearts and be saved. All that is a salvation by our
own doing. That's all that is. And the Jews
there at the cross thought the exact same thing. They made the
exact same mistake. They thought all this that was
going on was their doing and their will and their purpose.
and they didn't know that it was God's will all along. Look
at verse 6. This is the Savior speaking.
But I am a worm and no man, of reproach of men and despised
of the people. This tells us how greatly Christ
suffered. It tells us how low the Son of
God had to sink to save His people from their sin. The great I am,
He spoke to Moses at the burning bush. At the cross, he says,
I am a worm. That word worm means maggot. Now we can't even begin to comprehend
the distance between the great I am and a maggot. But the I am said, I am a maggot. That's how low the Son of God
had to go. save his people from their sin,
because we're maggots, because we're at the bottom of the barrel.
He had to go that low to save his people. The son of God became
what he called a maggot. Lower than even a fallen man.
I'm no man, he said. I'm even lower than fallen man. He became what was offensive
to his father, so that he could save his people from their sin.
Now, this maggot that he refers to here, when it was crushed,
would produce a red juice or something that they used for
a red dye. This is the maggot that the Jews used to get the
dye from to make the red threads that were in the tabernacle,
all of which is a picture of Christ. See, this is no accident. Our Lord called himself a maggot.
He's telling us something here. This was always God's eternal
will and purpose to cleanse the sin of his people by the blood
of his son, by him being crushed and killed as a substitute, a
sacrifice for his people. He told us that in picture all
throughout the Old Testament. Psalm 22 is hardly a picture,
is it? Spurgeon says, is this history or is it prophecy? This is awful playing. He told
us all throughout the Old Testament, this is how God's going to save
his people is through the sacrifice of Christ. He gave us that in
picture. And at the cross, he removed all that. This is how
God saves his people. But the natural man cannot understand
that. Instead of thanking the Lord
Jesus for suffering for his people like this, they despised him. They rejected him. They forsook
him. Verse 7. All they that see me
laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip. They
shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver
him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. You know
how the scribes and the Pharisees mocked the Savior, just laughing
at his agony. I cannot imagine what it must
have been like to see somebody crucified. I mean, what a gruesome
thing. And they were laughing at him.
They said he saved others. Himself he cannot save. Well,
they preached a message there, didn't they? They were right.
He could not save. He could not save himself from
the cross. Because he was there saving his
people from their sin by his sacrifice. They said, well, he
said he's the king of Israel. Come down from the cross and
we'll believe you. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't come down
from the cross because there at the cross he was purchasing
a people for his kingdom. They said, he said, he's the
son of God. Let's see if God will accept
him now. We'll get into this more in just more detail in a
minute. It's true as they watched him suffer. The father wouldn't
hear him. The Lord said it. I cried and you won't hear me.
The father wouldn't hear him. The father wouldn't have him
now. But when this sacrifice is over, you just wait. The father
will accept. And he's going to accept everyone
that he died for too. Christ didn't come down from
the cross. He had the power to come down from the cross. He
could have called all those legions of angels and put a stop to all
this, but he didn't do it. He didn't save himself, but he
gave himself to this sacrifice because this is the reason he
came in the first place. He came to die for his people.
This was always God's eternal purpose of redemption. Verse
nine. But thou art he that took me
out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's
breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb. Thou art my God
from my mother's belly. Be not far from me, for trouble
is near, for there is none to help." The father put his son
in the womb of a virgin, and he brought him forth in a live
birth. I mean, I can't imagine how many
babies died in childbirth at that time. not Mary's firstborn. Father brought him forth for
this purpose, save his people from their sin. You call his
name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sin. He's
going to do it by going to the cross and suffering and dying. And throughout his whole life,
the Lord Jesus trusted his father to strengthen him. He trusted
him to give him divine strength to get the job to obey the law,
to work out a perfect righteousness, even to suffer and to die, to
glorify his father. This was the will of God. Christ
dying at Calvary was the will and purpose of Almighty God.
It wasn't the will of man. If it was the will of man, he'd
have been dead a long time ago, wouldn't he? How many times did
men try to take him and kill him? Couldn't lay hand on him. He was right in front of them,
suddenly they couldn't see him anymore because his hour was not yet
come. They were powerless to do anything against God's purpose
of redemption through the sacrifice of Christ. And nothing changed
when His hour did come. When His hour did come, they
didn't take Him against His will. No, He gave Himself to be taken
to the cross. He gave His back to the smiters. And when men finally got their
hands upon the Lord Jesus, you know what they did? accomplished
God's eternal purpose to a T. It's like they went back and
read Psalm 22 and said, now what are we supposed to do? Where
are we supposed to start? What are we supposed to do next? You
know, they couldn't keep the law. But at the cross, they kept
God's will. They fulfilled God's will in
every jot and every tittle. This is how precisely they fulfilled
God's purpose. So that we know this wasn't a
will of man. This is the eternal will of God. How God's purpose
to save his people from their sins. And this is no secret. I mean, Psalm 22 is not some
hidden psalm that they didn't discover, you know, till 500
years ago or something. This is no secret. This psalm
was read in the temple all the time. 1,000 years before Calvary, God
told them exactly what they do in amazing detail. And how many
times did 15, 60 year old men read this psalm over the course
of their life? Yet on that day, it never dawned on them that
they were fulfilling this scripture. It never dawned on them. Now
this sounds familiar. You know why? Because man's natural
mind is dead. We cannot understand. We cannot believe. We cannot
see. Verse 12. Many bulls have compassed
me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset
me round. They gaped upon me with their
mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. These men thought they
were so strong, accomplishing all their will, just surrounding
and capturing the Lord Jesus. And when they got him, they just
went after him like a pack of bloodthirsty hyenas. All the
while, not accomplishing their will, but accomplishing God's
will. And listen, the people accomplishing this, this was
the good folks of the day. I mean, this is the religious
leaders, the preachers and elders and deacons. These were the religious
leaders of their day. And they didn't know what was
going on. Even more, the Nicodemus didn't know what the Lord meant
when he said, you must be born again. They can't understand
because all they've got is a natural mind. Verse 16. For dogs have compassed me, the
assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and
my feet. These dogs are the dogs that
the the Apostle Paul warned the Philippians about. Religious
leaders. Religious leaders without Christ.
They're greedy dogs. They're dogs just trying to fulfill
the lust of their own belly. And when they did, all they did
was accomplish God's will. Verse 14. Our Lord says, I'm
poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My
heart is like wax. It's melted in the midst of my
bowels. The Lord Jesus poured himself out. He just poured himself
out for his people. And as he poured himself out,
he dried up and he thirsted. You know what causes you to feel
thirsty. It's when you're dehydrated. There's not enough water inside
your body. But here Christ was dried up.
And he said, my strength is dried up like a potsherd, like an old
piece of broken pottery. And he cried, I thirst. He thirsted for righteousness
because he'd been made sin. He thirsted for his father's
presence because his father has turned his back on him. All this
happened 1,000 years. This was written 1,000 years
before Christ suffered and died. But 1,000 years later, Christ
is going to cry, I thirst to fulfill God's purpose, to fulfill
this prophecy. And he says all his Verse 15, my strength is dried
up like a potsherd, my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, thou hast
brought me into the dust of death. Verse 17, he says, I may tell
all my bones. They look and stare upon me. All of his bones were out of
joint. They laid that cross down on
the ground, laid him down on it, drove nails to his hands
and his feet. They picked that cross up and
they had a hole prepared. He picked that thing up and dropped
that cross down that hole. And there he hung, just dropped.
You can imagine how his body wracked with pain. That jerking
just jerked a bunch of his bones. Just dislocated them out of joint.
The longer he hung there suffering, just stretching out and stretching
out, more of those bones came out of joint. He hung there so
long, stretched out so far. You can count all of his bones. They're all out there in the
open to be seen. Dislocated bones in agony. Not one bone was broken. They
were dislocated, but not one bone was broken. And that wasn't
an accident. That's God's purpose. God told
us that that would happen in the picture of the Passover lamb.
Don't you break a bone with it. There won't be a bone in my son's
broken. And then that soldier came. They
were going to break the legs, you know, so they die all the
quicker. And the soldier came, saw the Lord Jesus already dead.
Well, he still ought to mean this, could have whacked him
in the legs and broke his bones or something, just out of meanness.
But he didn't. He could have just said, well,
he's dead and walked on, left him alone. But he didn't. Somehow
it came in his mind, I'm going to take his spear. I'm going
to ram it through his side. You know why he did that? This
was God's eternal will and purpose. God told us that this would happen.
To fulfill the prophecy, they should look upon me whom they've
pierced and mourn. That was God's purpose. So when
he pierced his side, out flowed blood and water. Out flowed the
double cure from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blood to justify, water
to sanctify. That's God's purpose. Verse 18, he says, they part
my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. This is
part of the pay of the executioner. They got the clothes and the
stuff that belonged to the person that they were executing. And
they had the Lord's garments there, and they just threw dice
to decide who would get them. His outer garment was a woven
garment, woven from top to bottom, all one piece. And the soldier
said, now, let's not tear that. If we do, we're just going to
get a bunch of rags and strings that all come unraveled. Let's
not just, you know, give every man a piece, part of it. Let's
all, let's gamble for it and somebody will get the whole thing.
You know why they decided to do that? That the scriptures
might be fulfilled. Christ died according to the
scriptures. And that wasn't just a, you know,
a thing that they did so that we could see this was God's purpose.
There's something, there's a great spiritual meaning behind this.
That outer garment of our Lord's all one piece woven from top
to the bottom. Now why does the scripture bother
to say it was woven from the top to the bottom? Because that
garment's a picture of the righteousness of Christ. His garment's all
one piece, woven by Christ himself, by the Son of God himself, from
the top to the bottom. That righteousness is perfect.
It's never going to be torn. It's never going to become unraveled.
It's going to be given hold to all of God's elect. Well, they
did everything David said they do right here, didn't they? And
when they done everything they could think of to do or when
they did everything that was the Lord had foreordained for
them to do. Suddenly, there's a change. Everything
changes and how the Lord, the Savior is talking to his father. Third, the message of the cross,
it proclaims the suffering and death of Christ. Yes, it tells
us this is God's eternal purpose to save his people. And the message
of the cross also proclaims to us the victory and glory that
belong to Christ because of his suffering and death. Verse 19. But be not thou far from me,
O Lord. Suddenly he's not calling God
anymore. Be not far from me, O Lord. Oh,
my strength haste thee to help me deliver my soul from the sword,
my darling, from the power of the dog. So here the Savior is
not praying that to God, he's praying to his Father again,
the Lord. But he's not just asking his Father to deliver him from
suffering, to make this suffering stop. Now, he's already prayed
about that in the garden. He already prayed about this
matter. Not my will, but thy will be done. So he's not asking
that God remove the suffering from him. He prays, deliver my
soul from the sword of justice. That's the sword he's talking
about, the sword of justice. Deliver my soul from that sword
because I've satisfied justice. Raise me again from the tomb
because my sacrifice has blotted out all the sin laid upon me.
Restore me back to life. Raise me from the dead and give
all my people life due because my sacrifice, my blood has removed
all of their sin. Give me life and give my people
life because my sacrifice has satisfied your justice that demands
death for sin. See, Christ, He's praying, but
He's not praying as a victim, is He? No, He's praying as the
victor. He's not praying in weakness,
He's praying in strength. Even as He suffers upon the cross,
He prays as the victor in strength and might, as the deliverer of
His people. He prays that His Father would
deliver Him from the power of these self-righteous dogs. But not until God's purpose of
redemption has been accomplished and the Savior prays, when your
will is done, then deliver me from them and accept my sacrifice
as the sacrifice that you've been waiting on all these years. You've not been pleased with
all these animal sacrifices that these dogs have been offering.
No, you've been waiting on this sacrifice. Now accept my sacrifice. It's a sacrifice that pleases
you, that satisfies you, that satisfies your holy justice,
so that you can accept my people in your love and mercy and grace.
Verse 21, he says, save me from the lion's mouth, for thou hast
heard me from the horns of the unicorn. The lion he refers to
here is Satan. And you know, Satan's been behind
what men have been doing here all along. Satan moved in Judas's
heart. He moved the chief priests and
Pilate. Satan's been active here at me.
He bruised the Savior's heel, but the Savior's crushed his
head. Now he prays that the Father would deliver him from Satan's
mouth, deliver him from the mouth of that old lion, because Christ
the Savior's crushed his head. He's got all power and authority.
He talks here about the place from the horns of the unicorn.
Now what that means is he's crying from the place of power and authority. Whatever animal, I don't know
what animal David is referring to here. I read a lot about it
and nobody else does either. Everyone in David's day would
have had some idea, a pretty good idea probably, what animal
David was referring to. It would have been a powerful
animal that had horns like a tusk or something, like a bull or
a rhino or elephant or something. But you know, you're missing
the whole point here. If you try to figure out who
this animal is, what kind of animal this is, that's not important.
I tell you what's important. This is Christ speaking from
the horns of the unicorn. He's speaking with all power
and authority. Even in his agony nailed to a
tree, he's speaking with all power and all authority. That's
what's important. That's the blessing, because
whatever it is he's doing there, he's going to do it. He's going
to accomplish it. Whatever it is he came to do,
he's going to do it. Because here, even in his physically,
most helpless state. He's speaking in power, Brittany,
in authority. Even before the Lord gives up
the ghost, even as he's suffering, he's speaking in power. He knows
the sacrifice is going to be effectual. And he's coming into
a kingdom. That thief was right. He's coming
into a kingdom because he's won the war against him and he's
satisfied his father. So verse 22, he says, I will
Declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation.
Well, I praise thee. You see, now, since Christ has
died, there's a gospel to declare. There's a name of God to declare
a gospel of forgiveness, a gospel of righteousness and peace, a
gospel of eternal life to be preached. See, Christ suffered
so his people would never suffer. He suffered being forsaken by
his father so his father would never forsake his people. He
suffered humiliation so that his people will never suffer
the humiliation of standing before God guilty. You know, we think
what great humiliation the Lord hung there on that cross naked.
I'll tell you what was greater than humiliation. Being made
sin and appearing before his father naked. It never happened
to anyone for whom Christ died. He suffered that humiliation
for his people. He suffered being naked so his
people would be clothed in his righteousness. He suffered thirst. He cried out thirst so that his
people who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be
filled. And Christ died so that his people
would never die. They'll have eternal life. Christ died. He was brought to
the dust of death, but he's not going to stay dead. He said,
I will declare thy name unto my brethren. These are the people
he loves, my brethren. And he said, I'm gonna be the
one to declare your name to the hearts of my people. You know,
we preach and we preach and we preach and we preach. I try to
think today, wonder how many gospel messages I've heard. We preach, we preach, Lord willing,
we'll preach again Sunday. I started working on a message
today. I'm excited about it. And every time I drive down Hurricane
Road, leaving this building, I wonder if I believe. Anybody believe? Lord, will you
reveal yourself to anybody? I can tell you when we'll believe.
I know precisely when we'll believe. It's not when you hear the voice
of a preacher, but when Christ speaks to the heart, when he
comes and declares the name of the Father to his brethren, then
we'll believe. And he says that's exactly what
he's going to do. Now, this is before he's come
down from the cross. He's already speaking in utter victory and
glory. Now, you can imagine his people
Those who, by the time He gave up the ghost, had crept near
enough to the cross to hear and see something. They're full of
fear, they're full of sorrow. Those that weren't close enough,
they're all hiding somewhere, you know, full of fear and sorrow
at their master suffering and dying. His people today are full
of fears, sorrow because of our sins and all the things of this
life. But I want you to listen to what
the Savior tells His people to do. Verse 23. Ye that fear the
Lord, praise Him. All ye that see of Jacob, glorify
Him. And fear Him all ye that see
of Israel. The Savior tells His people to praise Him, to rejoice
in the Lord. He's forgiven your sin. Rejoice! He's blotted your sin out with
His blood. Rejoice! And He did this for His elect.
He did it for spiritual Israel. His seed. He didn't die for everybody. You know, if He died for everybody
and people go to hell, You know, there's no victory here. There's
no glory here. But he didn't die for everybody. He did this
for his seed, for his people. And those people are saved. They're
justified. They're made righteous. They're
glorified. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice. I'll tell you, here's
a reason we should rejoice. We sure didn't deserve it, did
we? We didn't deserve the Lord to do this for us. But he did
it for his people because he's merciful. Verse 24. For he hath
not despised nor behored the affliction of the afflicted,
neither hath he hid his face from him. But when he cried unto
him, he heard him." God doesn't despise and reject His people
because of their sin. You know, often we feel so sinful
and guilty and we feel like we need to straighten up, you know,
before we come to the Father. He'll never hear me and all my
sin. Now, wait a minute. God doesn't despise and reject
His people because of their sin. He rejected His Son for the people,
for the sin of His people. So He'll never reject them. The
Father hid His face from His Son when His Son was made sin,
so that He'll never hide His face from His poor, weak children. You call, He'll hear you. He wouldn't hear the cry of the
Son when the Son was made sin, but He'll hear the cry of His
people when they cry for mercy and help. And then verse 25,
the Savior speaks in utter final triumph. My praise shall be of
thee in the great congregation. I will pay my vows before them
that fear him. The Lord Jesus Christ honored
and magnified every attribute of the father in his death. And
he is the only one who can make this statement at the end of
verse 25, I'll pay my vow. He's the only one who can make
that statement. He did just that. He paid the
vow he made to his father. But his father, in the covenant
of grace, chose a people to save. They're sinful people. They're
vile people. They're wretched people. They're
fallen and dead. What a gift he gave to his son.
And his son made a vow. He said, Father, I'll redeem
them. I'll make them righteous. I'll
give them an obedience. I'll shed my blood to pay for
their sin. He made that vow. He went to Calvary's tree. He
paid that vow. The debt's paid. The covenant
has been ratified. And because of that, verse 26,
the meek shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise the Lord that
seek him. Your heart shall live forever.
The meek are going to eat the bread of life. They're going
to praise the Lord and they're going to have eternal life. Not
because they earned it, but because Christ paid the vow he made to
his father and he gave them eternal life. See, now all that suffering
and sorrow has been turned to joy, hadn't it? Victory. And
the victory of Christ at Calvary is so complete, He saved a people
from the whole world. Verse 27. All the ends of the
world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds
of the nation shall worship before thee. God has a people from all
the nations, from everywhere, from every generation, and the
one sacrifice of Christ redeemed them all. So, verse 28. The kingdom is the Lord's. He's
the governor among the nations. The victory of Christ is complete.
He saved his people. He bought them lot, stock and
barrel. But you know, not only that, he purchased everything
else too. He's the governor of it all. He owns it all. He rules
over all nations as the absolute monarch over all so that he guarantees
the redemption of his people. That's great news, isn't it?
But there's a sad note. Everybody's not going to believe
on this crucified Savior. Everybody's not going to love
Him. Everybody's not going to find joy in this. Verse 29. All they that
be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship. All they that go
down to the dust shall bow before Him. And none can keep alive
his own soul. God's people, they're going to
worship. They're going to bow on Thanksgiving.
But those self-righteous who think that they're fat in their
own righteousness, their own obedience, they think they can
produce enough that God will be satisfied with them. They're going to perish. We can't
keep our own soul alive. We're already dead. We can't
keep our own soul alive. The only hope we have is eternal
life in the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody's not going to believe
Him, but somebody will. His people, his seed will, verse
30, a seed shall serve him. A people that's going to be born
from his seed shall serve him. It shall be accounted to the
Lord for a generation. God has a seed of people who
are going to be born again by his seed, and they're going to
serve the Lord. And I'll tell you one of the
ways they're going to serve the Lord. It's by telling people about it, especially
the next generation, verse 31. They shall come and shall declare
His righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He hath
done this." Our message to the next generation is salvation
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is finished. That's the last
line, that He hath done this. It is finished. Christ finished
everything that's necessary to save His people from their sins.
He's done everything that's necessary So His people will have eternal
life. Now it's done. Now just rest in Christ. Just trust Him and rest in Him.
When we observe this table here in a moment, the Apostle Paul
told us that we do show, we do truly tell the Lord's death till
He comes. And to truly tell the Lord's
death, we can't just say He died on a cross. No, we have to say
when He died, it's finished. That He finished all the work
of redemption for His people. So trust Him. We tell that, that's
the message to our children. That's the next generation. God's
got a generation. He's got a people that haven't
been born yet. They're going to be born again. You know how?
Through the preaching of this gospel, the message of the cross.
It's finished. So if Christ is your only hope
of salvation, if He's all your salvation, then this table's
for you. This table is for you because
our Lord gave His body to be broken for your sin, to suffer
justice for you. This table is for you because
the Lord gave His blood as payment for your sin. If that's your
only hope, if that's your only hope of forgiveness, then you
rejoice. You've got good hope. It's finished. It's finished. This table is
for you. That's what we're going to observe
right now. Eric, if you would, you men distribute
the bread.