Well, thank you once again for
your kind welcome. It's lovely to be here. And when
anyone ever asks you how many people go to your church, just
tell them we've got members all over the world. Because we kind
of feel as if we're so close to you here that we consider
you to be bound together with us and we with you whenever you're
gathering together to worship the Lord. You know, Mr Hart,
I guess Angus speaks well of Mr Hart, and I think that it's
good that we remember that these men, we can stand beside him,
shoulder to shoulder, in that theology that he is giving us
there in that hymn. And it's lovely, and for all
the modern novel ways of trying to present religion and to set
forth the gospel and all these things. We know that we have
a pedigree and a continuity and a unity with these old men that
preach this good old gospel. So we're delighted to be able
to come and to share with you from both past generations and
from all across the world the glorious things of the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is to be
the subject of our thoughts this morning. You have a little thing
at the top of the desk here which says, Sir, we would see Jesus.
And I take that obligation very seriously whenever I come to
preach to anyone, wherever that might be. My purpose, my role
and responsibility this morning is to lift up the Lord Jesus
Christ. If I do anything short of that, I will have failed in
my task. If I do anything more than that,
if I in some way exalt the preacher or puff up some concept or idea
or some individual or some organization, then I will have detracted from
my principal purpose of lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ. God,
help us. to see Jesus. God help us to
see him clearly this morning and God forbid that we should
raise any smokescreen or say anything that is going to in
some way prove to be a barrier and a difficulty for anyone to
see the Lord Jesus Christ. When we come together to worship,
I want us to remember that the Lord Jesus Christ was a man like
we are. And that means that the troubles
that we face, the difficulties that we encounter, the trials
we endure, The Lord Jesus Christ has a sensitivity to them and
a sympathy for them that goes as deep in our personal understanding
as the knowledge of our troubles to ourselves. And did you hear
what I said there? You might look around and say
of the people around about you that they really don't understand
what I'm going through. They really don't grasp what
this is all about. They don't know the issues that
I've got. They may reach out a hand of
fellowship. They may smile. They may listen
while I tell them something about what it is that I'm experiencing. But really, they don't understand. And I guess 99 times out of 100,
you'd be absolutely right. Maybe a hundred out of a hundred.
The lovely thing about the Lord Jesus Christ is that he understands. He understands because He has
walked this way. He understands because He has
been in your place. We're going to enlarge a little
bit on that this morning, as the Lord might allow. But I want
just to say something here by way of introduction with respect
to this empathy that the Lord Jesus Christ has with us as His
people, in all of our troubles and all of our difficulties.
I love that this Psalm 23 speaks so simply of the Lord Jesus Christ's
own experience in his pilgrim journey. Because the Lord walked
on these same pieces of ground that we walk on. He walked in
the towns and the villages, He walked amongst people, He walked
in our age with our flesh, seeing all the things that we see, knowing
all the things that we know. And while He was without sin
yet, He has an empathy with us even in our sin. And I'm going
to touch on that a little bit later. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered
terrible things. I am pleased that Psalm 23 comes
after Psalm 22. If for no other reason than I
would find it difficult to find Psalm 23 if it wasn't where it
was supposed to be. But it's where it is because
Psalm 22 says, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And Psalm 23 says, The Lord is
my shepherd, I shall not want. As a preacher, preaching the
Lord Jesus Christ, it is right and proper that I endeavour to
the best of my ability to drive your thoughts to the cross. Because
it was at the cross that the Lord Jesus Christ dealt with
the problem that faces every one of us. and we go to the cross. We go to the cross because that's
where Jesus was lifted up. If we seek to lift up the Lord
Jesus Christ, we go to the cross. That's where salvation was effected. That's where sins were forgiven. That's where life is to be found. There's the irony that in the
death of the substitute, we find our life. But let us not forget that our
Saviour, in order to bear that sin on the cross, had Himself
to be sustained through the days of His life and had to be enabled
and equipped and provided for that He might actually be able
to give us that life which we desire from Him. Such was the
weakness of the Lord's flesh. Such were the weights that were
laid against Him that we need to realise and understand that
our Lord had to be sustained through the days of His life
in order to meet that great appointment at the cross at Calvary. Lord Jesus Christ had to be blessed,
sustained, and comforted by the Lord God, his Father, more than
any man that has ever lived in this world. No man ever needed the help of
God the Father more than the Lord Jesus Christ, because no
man ever suffered as much as the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
told here in this Psalm 23 that the Father prepared a table in
the midst of the enemies of the Lord, a table of blessing, of
sustenance and of comfort in the presence of Christ's enemies,
both physical and spiritual. And here in Psalm 23, we have
this witness, this Holy Spirit witness, granted to us by the
pen of David, which, as we've mentioned before, would have
been recited, would have been learned, would have been memorized
by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and who gave it its fullness,
who gave it its true depth and meaning, so that whatever we
draw from Psalm 23, and there's much blessing and sweetness to
be had in it, Let us never deny the firstfruits
of this psalm to the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He is the one
who truly could see in that first instance The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. For he is the very one who had
previously declared in that prophetic word, my God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? Here we see something of the
extent and the nature of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ,
something of the cost of our redemption. And let us never
understate or undervalue what it cost the Lord Jesus Christ
to lay down his life. Do we have any idea, any idea
at all, what it is to endure the wrath of God? We're going
to read Lamentations chapter two. That's my reading this morning. Turn with me to Lamentations
chapter 2. And I acknowledge that Lamentations
chapter 2 is about the destruction of Jerusalem. But let me tell
you this, that whatever salvation we have, whatever mercy, whatever
deliverance we have, from God, whatever forgiveness
we enjoy, has been secured and purchased for us upon the justice
and the holiness of God being able to place the punishment
for our sin upon the shoulders of another. Okay? God just doesn't overlook it.
He just doesn't deal with it in a let's pretend basis. The holiness of God requires
justice. It requires a justification. It requires a propitiation. It requires that wrath, the wrath
of God against sin, be carried. in order to placate his holy
anger. If you see an example of the
anger of God, if you see an example of the anger of God, you ought
to think to yourself, if I'm not going to be eligible to take
that anger against my sin, who was, who did? Where did my sin
go and who carried it on my behalf? So as we read Lamentations chapter
2 and think about some of the things that are written in that,
we can personify this chapter not upon the city of ancient
Israel, that was destroyed by God, but upon our own lives and
what it cost the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver us from our sin. How
hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger, The
Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath
not pitied. He hath thrown down in his wrath
the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He hath brought them
down to the ground. He hath polluted the kingdom
and the princes thereof. He hath cut off in his fierce
anger all the horn of Israel. He hath drawn back his right
hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like
a flaming fire which devoureth round about. He hath bent his
bow like an enemy. He stood with his right hand
as an adversary and slew all that were pleasant to the eye
in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. He poured out his fury
like fire. The Lord was an enemy. He hath
swallowed up Israel. He hath swallowed up all her
palaces. He hath destroyed his strongholds,
and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. And he hath violently taken away
his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden. He hath destroyed
his places of the assembly. The Lord hath caused the solemn
feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in
the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. The
Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her
palaces. They have made a noise in the
house of the Lord as in the day of a solemn feast. The Lord hath
purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He hath
stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying. Therefore he made the rampart
and the wall to lament, they languish together. Her gates
are sunk into the ground. He hath destroyed and broken
her bars. Her king and her princes are
among the Gentiles. The law is no more. Her prophets
also find no vision from the Lord. The elders of the daughter
of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silence. They have cast
up dust upon their heads. They have girded themselves with
sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang
down their heads to the ground. My eyes do fail with tears, my
bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth for
the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children
and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. They say
to their mothers, where is corn and wine? When they swooned as
the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was
poured out into their mother's bosom. What things shall I take
to witness for thee? What things shall I liken to
thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that
I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For thy breach
is great like the sea. Who can heal thee? Thy prophets
have seen vain and foolish things for thee, and they have not discovered
thine iniquity to turn away thy captivity, but have seen for
thee false burdens and causes of banishment. All that pass
by clasp their hands at thee. They hiss and wag their head
at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that
men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? All
thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee. They hiss
and gnash their teeth. They say, We have swallowed her
up. Certainly this is the day that
we looked for. We have found, we have seen.
The Lord hath done that which he had devised. He hath fulfilled
his word that he had commanded in the days of old. He hath thrown
down and hath not pitied. He hath caused thine enemy to
rejoice over thee. He hath set up the horn of thine
adversaries. Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river
day and night. Give thyself no rest. Let not
the apple of thine eye cease. Arise, cry out in the night,
in the beginning of the watches. Pour out thine heart like water
before the face of the Lord. Lift up thy hands towards him
for the life of thy young children that faint for hunger in the
top of every street. Behold, O Lord, and consider
to whom thou hast done this. Shall the woman eat their fruit,
and children of a span long? Shall the priest and the prophet
be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? The young and the old
lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men are
fallen by the sword. Thou hast slain them in the day
of thine anger. Thou hast killed and not pitied. Thou hast called, as in a solemn
day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the Lord's
anger none escaped nor remained. Those that I have swaddled and
brought up hath mine enemy consumed. These are solemn, solemn works.
These speak about a God that few people like to consider these
days. These speak about a God whose
holy indignation has caused him to withhold his hand of pity,
has caused him to send his wrath and his judgment upon a people."
This is the judgment of God, here spoken of, here presented
to us. The destruction upon a city in
which infants and children were slain along with the young men
and the old men, where religious people and old people were all
dealt with exactly in the same way by the enemy that was brought
in against them. But Jeremiah says, this is God's
work, this is God's wrath. And it was the wrath against
these people for their sin. Shall the wrath of God against
my sin be any less? Shall the hatred of God against
your sin be any more diminished? Will the Lord say, that sin was
grievous, but these sins are all right? I won't be as aggressive,
I won't be as hard, I won't be as sharp and pointed and brutal
in my judgment of these sins. Let me tell you, God hates sin
and God will judge sin and wherever God finds sin, it must be dealt
with. And if we have any hope of salvation,
if we have any grounds, For forgiveness before a holy God, it's because
someone else took this, took this that happened in Jerusalem,
took this wrath, this anger, this judgment, and bore it for
us. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ
this morning because we believe the testimony of scripture. We
believe that God is saying to men and women today, Jesus Christ
is such a saviour. Jesus Christ is such a substitute. Jesus Christ is the surety of
his people. And therefore it is to Christ
that we look. But as we look to him and his
death, let us not forget what it cost him to endure the life,
the benefits, but it caused him to endure the punishment for
us to have the benefits that we now rejoice in. Let us never
understate or undervalue the extent of the sufferings of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews chapter 5 verse 2 says,
for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. That means that
it was completely all round about. You know what a compass is? Well
Christ was compassed. with iniquity and infirmity and
with judgment, who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers
and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that
was able to save him from death. Jeremiah is spoken of as the
lamenting prophet, but the Lord Jesus Christ was the true lamenting
prophet. In that mediatorial role of prophet,
priest, and king, the Lord Jesus Christ was the true lamenter
for the pain and for the suffering that he endured. Though he were
a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
Hebrews 5 continues in verse 9 and it says, and being made
perfect. Perfect in what? I'll tell you
what he was made perfect in. He was made perfect in his sufferings. That speaks of a comprehensiveness. The Lord Jesus Christ wasn't
made perfect in His conduct or in His nature or in His flesh. He always was perfect. That's
what made Him the worthy sacrifice. But He was made perfect in His
sufferings because He endured all the sufferings to completion,
to wholeness, to everything. that was required at the hands
of his people for those that he made himself surety. And being made perfect in suffering,
in drinking up the full portion of sin and wrath and judgment,
in completely draining that cup of suffering, he became thereby
the author of eternal salvation unto all that obey him. So when
we look to the Lord Jesus Christ and his death on the cross, let
us not look at it lightly or glibly or without proper consideration
of the price that was paid for him to secure those blessings
that flow to the people of God from the cross of suffering.
And I want, if we possibly can this morning, to get a sense
of this suffering beyond the simple words that we read on
the face of Scripture. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
had to be made like unto his brethren in all things, because
he must suffer all things as the complete man. He must suffer
in body, He must suffer in mind and he must suffer in spirit.
Now, how do we think about these things as far as we ourself are
concerned? Because I think if we recognize
these things in ourself, then we'll begin to better understand
what it was for the Lord to suffer them. Do you suffer in body? Do you know what a pain is? Do
you know what it is to be double bent with a pain? To try and
get into as small a ball as possible because you hope that being as
little as you possibly can be will minimize the pain that is
wracking your body. I'm always interested when I
hear people saying, I've never felt pain like that before. I've
never felt pain like that before. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ's
body was just like your body, just like yours. The tips of
his fingers, they held as many nerve ends. The flesh of his
body carried as much of the sense of hurt that we do. Now, I hope that you will only
ever have to carry your own pain. but the Lord Jesus Christ had
to carry the pain of all his people. Think about that amassed. Think about what that could possibly
mean to our body if it didn't only have to carry the pain of
its own illnesses and sicknesses and diseases. the effects of
the cancer that grows up inside and starts to kill the cells
and break out in all manner of corruption in the surface. Think about if it wasn't just
my cancer, but everyone's cancers that the Lord carried. all of
the people for whom he died, all of those that he represented.
And think of the pain that that would bring. And what about our
minds and the anxieties and the worries that we face and the
challenges and the breakdowns and the nervous problems that
we encounter and the fear and the depressions? And gather them
all up for all the elect. and see if you can squeeze them
into a great big bag of worries. And then know this, that the
Lord Jesus Christ carried them all in their entirety, not just
yours, bad as it might be, and not just yours, but all of his
people's pain and anguish and fear was laid upon him. And in our spirits, the Lord
Jesus Christ suffered in that Holy Spirit more than we can
begin to imagine. For while we have a conviction
of sin, perhaps to a greater or lesser degree, the Lord Jesus
Christ knew what it was to have that sin laid upon him, such
that it became his own. The writer to the Corinthians
says, he was made sin for us. And that means not only did he
legitimately bear our sin, and that's the reason why God could
send this wrath upon him, but he carried the consequences
of that sin, he carried the regrets of that sin, he carried the knowledge
of the things that that sin had effected in our lives and in
the lives of others. Our sins don't end with ourselves
by any means at all. You commit your sin. You can
sometimes count the people that are affected by it. And I'll
bet for a beginning, you men that have committed sin, your
wife suffers for it. And your children suffer for
it. And their children will suffer
for it. because they will be damaged
by the time they come to adulthood, because of the things that you've
done, because of the example that you've shown them, because
of the way in which you've mistreated them. And they will carry the
scars of those problems into their own lives, such that the
judgments of God come upon the children's children's children's
to the third and fourth generation. Oh, there's no limit. You want
to know why judgment comes at the end of the world? Because all of the repercussions
of your sin have yet to be added up. Now don't you for a moment
begin to imagine that it doesn't affect anyone but yourself. And
the Lord Jesus Christ had to bear everything of every one
of his elect people in his body there on the cross. We cannot
begin to appreciate the extent of the Lord's suffering. Never
man suffered as he suffered. Never man agonized as he agonized. Never man grieved and groaned
in spirit as he did. It was a function of his priestly
office. It was a function of the fact
that he had to come as a man like us in order to offer, both
as the offerer and as the offering. The writer of the Hebrews explains
much about this, that he had to be made like us in order to
go in for us to the presence of God. To represent his people, to accept
sin for his people, to be punished on behalf of his people, to bear
it in his own body in the tree, he had to be one of us. Hebrews
chapter 2 verse 17 says, Wherefore in all things it behoved him
to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation
for the sins of his people. The Lord Jesus Christ was not
a sinner. He never committed a sin, but
the being of sin effects of sin, the consequences of sin, the
pain, the fear, the loss, the bereavement, the shame, the penalty,
completely and in its entirety was placed into the soul of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Never a man suffered like this
man. Have you been abused? in your
life. The Lord Jesus Christ feels the
pain of that abuse. Have you felt pain? The Lord
Jesus Christ knows that pain that you feel. Have you been
anxious and worried and fearful? Does your mind play tricks on
you and cause you to be distressed? Black days, hard days, down days,
depression? The Lord Jesus Christ has been
there before you. That's the reason why we have
an access to Him. We have a sympathy with Him.
It's the reason why He is able to enter into our experiences.
And while even those that are closest to us sometimes don't
understand what it is we are going through, we can take these
things to the Lord. He knew what it was to be betrayed. He knew what it was to be in
distress. He knew what it was to be lonely,
to be weary, to be anxious. He knows. Isaiah 53 verse 2 says, he had
no form nor comeliness. No beauty that we should desire
him. He was despised and rejected
of men. There was nothing attractive
in the Lord. You wouldn't have wanted to spend any time in the
Lord's presence. You would have said to yourself,
no, this is not someone that I want to be with. This is someone
that is beat up. This is someone that is broken. This is someone that has been
hurt. We can find better company than
this. Everything that we suffer became
His amassed experience. The accumulated wrath of God,
the wrath that was described as coming against Jerusalem in
Lamentations, the accumulated wrath of God against every sin
that we commit, all the sin of all the elect, all the suffering
of all His people, He made it His own. and he willingly undertook
to bear that for us. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
simply die. I trust I'm not being frivolous
here when I say this, but if it was just the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ, he could have died as an infant. He could have died in Herod's
purge. He was spotless? If it was just
the matter of someone innocent dying in the place of another,
why not? Why did he have to go through
all the things that he went through? The Lord Jesus Christ, we are told,
endured the suffering of death. That's an important phrase. The
Lord endured the suffering of death. He grew up, matured as
a man in the presence of his enemies. We're told that he tasted
death for every man. Now, that's not an Arminian phrase,
although it's sometimes misused. A better way of thinking about
it, perhaps, is to think about it like this. He tasted every
man's death. He tasted death for every man. Whatever it is that took the
people of God, He tasted it in the suffering of death. And so
here we have the Lord in this situation presented to us in
Scripture. And we see this aggravated suffering
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what Psalm 23 tells us is
this, that the aggravated suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ required
the enlarged help of his father. The head of the body was blessed,
was sustained, was comforted throughout his earthly life and
in his death to endure to the end. It had to be for the suffering
of death. He had to, as he said to John
the Baptist, suffer it to be so now, for in this way we will
fulfill all righteousness. That fulfilling of all righteousness
was the work of Christ. It was the suffering of death. The combined weight of sin and
sin's consequences, sin's penalty, and the divine judgment of God's
justice upon it, so as to crush an ordinary man, was carried
upon the shoulders of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
vicariously, not for himself, but for every man for whom he
died. And in the midst of his suffering,
Psalm 23 tells us that the Father held him up. The Father held
him up as all of this weight of sin bore down upon his shoulders. Hebrews 4.15 says, We have not
an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin. The Father prepared a table. The Father prepared a table. Psalm 23 tells us of a table. Why a table? What is the significance
of a table? Why would you prepare a table
in the presence of the enemy? In the midst of all of this suffering
that the Lord Jesus Christ endured, the table is obviously significant. Well, what is a table? What's
a table for? It's for lying things on. That's
what you use a table for. It's used to lay things down.
It's a surface that will bear the weight that is laid upon
it. Now, it's prefigured, this table,
in the tabernacle. For in the tabernacle a table
was there located which was made of wood, shittum wood it's called,
and covered in gold. And any study that you ever do
on the tabernacle and the furniture of the tabernacle will undoubtedly
lead you to think about the Lord Jesus Christ there in that specially
designed and constructed table. It spoke And thus, to those who
have eyes to see of the two natures of the Lord Jesus Christ, there
was wood and it was covered in gold. And we see there both the
human nature and the divine nature of the Lord Jesus Christ coming
together, necessarily coming together to bear the weight that
was laid upon it. He is prefigured as a table there
in the tabernacle because upon that table things were laid.
things that were laid principally upon the table was the showbread.
And the showbread in itself is another picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's bread that sustains and
nourishes, bread that gives life, but it's bread that has to be
broken in order to be consumed. And these things all prefigure
and are types of the Lord Jesus Christ. Upon the table that was the Lord
and that was the Lord's body would be laid the chastisement
of our peace. The iniquity of us all, writes
Isaiah. And what a weight that would
be. Would the Lord Jesus Christ survive
it? Would that table hold up under
such a weight? There was once another man who
was challenged by God concerning his sin. And Cain, right at the
very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis chapter four, verse
13, speaks to the Lord in these words. He says, my punishment
is greater than I can bear. My punishment is greater than
I can bear. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
was called upon to carry the punishment and to bear the punishment
of all his people. An eternity of judgment against
our sin concentrated onto the shoulders of the Lord Jesus Christ
and laid upon him. People talk about the force of
a black hole in space. Well, you want to talk about
power. Nor all the power of nature can begin to think about that
which was necessary to uphold the Lord Jesus Christ under such
a weight of judgment. Thus preparing that table, the
Father designed it with strength and for purpose. He provided
a table that would endure. and he granted gifts that would
help the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of his suffering. He
spread that table that would bear the weight of sin with gifts
of grace and favour. He upheld his Son. The promises
of Jehovah were a comfort to the Son. All the promises of
the Bible were made to the Son. We like to think about the promises,
we were talking about some of them earlier, we like to think
about the promises of Scripture. Know this, all the promises of
Scripture are Christ's. That's who they're made to. We
only benefit from those promises in as much as we are in Christ.
They flow to us having first flown to the Son of God. They are made to the person of
Christ and then in him they are all yea and amen to us. And thus it was that the suffering
servant was granted the help of his father. Turn with me to
Isaiah 42, if you will, for a moment. I want to read a couple of verses
from Isaiah 42. Look at verse 8. I am the Lord, that is my name,
and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise
to graven images. Behold, the former things are
come to pass, and new things do I declare before they spring
forth, I tell you of them. Sing unto the Lord a new song,
and his praise from the end of the earth. ye that go down to
the sea and all that is therein, the isles and the inhabitants
thereof. Let the wilderness and the cities
thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Cedar doth
inhabit. Let the inhabitants of the rock
sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them
give glory unto the Lord and declare his praise in the islands.
The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man. He shall stir up jealousy
like a man of war. He shall cry ye roar. He shall
prevail against his enemies. That is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And here was another prophetic promise to the Son of God. You
will prevail. You will prevail in the midst
of your enemies. And so the promises were granted
to the Son of God. These promises were given. And
the Lord Jesus Christ, there as a young man in Nazareth, there
reading in the synagogue the Psalms, would read Psalm 22. And he would know that that's
what I'm here for. these bulls of Bashan, these
dogs that surround me, all of this trouble which must beset
me. But then he would read Psalm
23 and he would remember that the promises of God were his.
All we thank the Lord, we thank the Lord our God that he sustained
his son in order that he might, in that time of his greatest
distress, be held up even to the accomplishment of every purpose
of God's grace. The personal promises of glory,
the blessings of holiness and righteousness, they were Christ's.
We're told that some of the other gifts that were given to him
to sustain and help him were that the Holy Spirit, without
measure, was given to him. We're told that the Father gave
him multiple evidences, public witnesses, to the fact that his
pleasure dwelt in this, his Son, whether it was on the top of
the mountain of Transfiguration or there when he was baptised.
declarations that this is my son in whom I am well pleased.
What comfort the Lord must have drawn from those moments, as
those bulls of Bashan and dogs bit at his heels, as those enemies
of his rose up against him, and those friends of his betrayed
him and denied him. He was promised a more excellent
name. He was promised that angels would
serve him and guard him. The oil of gladness above his
fellows, despite all of his sorrows, was gifted to him by his father. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
in John chapter 3 says, For he whom God hath sent speaketh the
words of God, for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto
him. The Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into his hand. The Father gave him such
support that he would be able to endure. Hebrews 1.9, Thou
hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God,
even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above
thy fellows. not only is the Lord anointed
with the Holy Spirit, and with power, and with gladness, and
given a more excellent name, and sustained by these promises
of God to him in the midst of his sufferings, the name above
all names. But in Luke chapter 4, verse
18, we read these words, the Lord Jesus Christ going into
the synagogue in Nazareth, took the books of the prophets to
do the reading of the day, stood up in the midst of the people
and declared, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me
to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
the recovering of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty
them that are bruised. to preach the acceptable year
of the Lord. So the Lord couldn't have died
as an infant because he had a whole load of work to do in order to
come to that place of crucifixion. He had a message to declare,
he had a prophetic ministry as well as a priestly ministry and
he was able to fulfill all the requirements of the Holy God.
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. What is the acceptable
year of the Lord? It is the time of redemption. It is the day of salvation. And here the absolute promise
was given to the Lord Jesus Christ of victory over his foes, triumph
over sin. He would endure, he would suffer,
yes, he would die, yes, but he would have the victory. The Lord
God would raise him up. The Lord would give him a throne.
The Lord would give him a people. The Lord would give him a name
in glory that will resonate for all eternity as his people glorify
him for what he has suffered and what he has endured. Friends, We may, we are entitled
to discover much sweetness in Psalm 23 in our own pilgrim life,
but we do not deny the Lord Jesus Christ the blessings that he
drew from these words of comfort granted to him by God the Holy
Spirit, by the penmanship of David, as God the Father ministered
to his soul of the promise of victory over his enemies. And what runs over of this comfort
to the Lord Jesus Christ, what fills His cup and overflows,
is the benefit that flows to us through Him. Psalm 133 verse
2 says, it is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran
down, upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts
of his garment. There's an owing overflowing,
there's a running over of the blessedness of the table that
was set there in the midst of the enemies of Christ. A running
over of blessedness which flows to his church and flows to his
people. It's a beautiful picture that
the apostle grants to us of the Lord as the head of his church,
the head of his people. There is the Lord at the head
and there is his people. Where do you see them? Well,
on the shoulders you can see the people of God, and there
on the arms, and running down to the wrists, and to the tips
of the fingers, and on the chest, and on the hips, and on the legs,
and on the feet, there are the Church of God. And where is this
blessed ointment flowing to? From the head of the Saviour.
He was anointed of his Father. and his cup runneth over. It's
a beautiful phrase that we have. Thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup runneth over. What the Lord Jesus Christ endured
is more than tongue can tell. What he accomplished is the complete
salvation of his chosen people. And what he gives to his cherished
ones is a fullness of blessing that is full and free. Luke 6
verse 38 says, it's in good measure. It's in good measure. He knows
what you need. He won't let these troubles that
are yours stretch you to such a degree that you are broken.
They're only for your good. They're only for your help. All
the viciousness, of that suffering has been drawn. All the sting
of that pain has been dealt with. The Lord Jesus Christ has already
walked this way for us and all that we have to endure in this
life is but a shadow of that which Christ endured and that
shadow designed for our good and for our benefit. Good measure
says Luke, pressed down and shaken together and running over. The Lord Jesus Christ is a table
made by God, fitted for his welfare and for his need. It is called
a table in the wilderness. It is called a table in the presence
of mine enemies. It is the Lord's table. It is
my table. It is my table in my kingdom,
saith the Lord. It is the furniture of his ministry,
where the showbread lay and upon which the body of the Lord Jesus
Christ was broken and his blood shed for the redemption of our
sins. In a few minutes we are going
to take the Lord's Supper. We are going to, as it were,
sit at the Lord's table. We are going to reflect once
again upon the price that was paid, the blood that was shed,
the body that was broken, but let us remember that the goodness
of his Father that the anointing of the Spirit were the Lord's
portion, and that the triune God in all of his glory and majesty,
the great Jehovah, laboured together in this great work to bring you
and me into union with him. The Lord Jesus Christ was upheld
in his suffering to this end, that he might carry it all the
way through to the point at which he declared, every demand is
dealt with. Every payment is made. Every
obligation is fulfilled. It is finished. Did death defeat
him? He gave up the ghost. He dismissed
his spirit. He is the only one in the history
of the world that had the right or the ability to do so. Death
never beat him, never took him. He gave himself into it, willingly
and voluntarily. And this is our God. We come to the Lord's table,
we don't come to a piece of wood. We don't even come any longer
to a table covered in gold. We come to the very person of
the Lord Jesus Christ himself, as he is set before us in these
elements. He is all our joy. He is the
darling of our hearts. He is the joy of the whole world. And our cup runneth over. Amen.