Early this week, I received an email from my dear
friend, Mother Georgiella, asking that I write an article for the
New Focus demonstrating the work of the triune God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit with regard to our salvation, recognizing that
it's very, very important that we recognize that God the Father
and God the Spirit are fully engaged in the salvation of our
souls. We recognize and often speak
of the Savior's love in dying for us. Oh, but what love the Father
bestowed upon us when he gave his darling son for us. pouring
out all the fury of His holy wrath upon His Son, and yet the
Son of His love, the darling of His heart. Eternity alone shall tell the
story. Let's go today to Psalm 22. And
I want us to come once more to Mount Calvary And behold, the
sacrifice of our great Savior and the sure results of that
sacrifice. Psalm 22. Now understand, everything
in this book is about the sacrifice. Everything in this book is about
the sacrifice. Everything either points to it
or refers back to it, or explains it. Everything in this book is
about the sacrifice. When the Lord first appeared
to Abraham in Genesis 15, Abraham split the sacrifices in parts
and laid them out before God. And then vultures came and would
have taken away the sacrifice, and Abraham drove them away.
And there are multitudes of vultures today who would take away the
sacrifice, take away the ethicacy of our Lord's sin-atoning sacrifice,
who would tell us that his blood really doesn't matter, that his
sacrifice really doesn't matter, that his death in our room instead
really doesn't accomplish anything. And we must drive away such vultures. But our Lord Jesus declares,
where the carcass is, or as Matthew puts it, where the body is. There
shall the eagles be gathered. Where the sacrifice is upheld
and maintained, our Lord Jesus will gather his little ones and
carry them to glory. When we come to Psalm 22, we
come to that psalm which is distinctly the psalm of sacrifice or the
psalm of the cross. This psalm is all about the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, I have told you many times
when you read the psalms, all of the psalms are messianic.
But the psalms generally have some reference, at least, to
the person writing them. The things that are written in
the psalm will, at least in some way, be applicable to the person
writing them, not Psalm 22. Here, David speaks entirely as
the prophet of God. He speaks entirely by divine
inspiration, not about himself, but about his great son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Savior and our Redeemer. This
psalm records the very words which our Savior spoke when he
hung upon the curse tree. As we read through the New Testament,
we read of those seven sayings of our Lord Jesus upon the cross. And those seven sayings are often
used. I've used them many times, and
will use them many times again, I'm sure, referring to that which
our Savior spoke to his Father and spoke to his disciples as
he died, hanging between heaven and earth, bearing our sins,
suffering the wrath of God. But Psalm 22. reveals to us that
which our Savior said to his father. Perhaps the psalm speaks
of that which he spoke audibly as well as that which he spoke
inaudibly, spoke from his heart to his father. But this psalm
speaks of our Savior's very words to his father as he bears his
father's wrath. all the furious hail of his father's
wrath as our sin-atoning substitute. To put it in the language of
the Holy Spirit, this psalm testifies beforehand the sufferings of
Christ and the glory that should follow. Verses 1 through 21 speak
of our Savior's sufferings. Verses 22 through 31 speak of
the glory that should follow. Now, clearly, the psalm is prophetic.
It is written concerning that which would take place almost,
well, much more than, I'm sorry, much more than 1,000 years after
the psalm was written, about 1,200 years after the psalm was
written. And yet the psalm is written
as a eyewitness account of what took place at Calvary. How is
it that David could speak here of that which was to take place
more than a thousand years to come and speak of it as that
which has already taken place and is giving us a historic narrative
of it? Could it be that our Lord Jesus
Christ, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world in
his very soul, suffered all these things from that time when he
stepped forth in old eternity, and agreed to become our surety,
and was made to be the Lamb of God in our stead, from whom the
Father looked for satisfaction from old eternity." Now, I said
as we read the psalm earlier, we ought to pay attention to
the title. In this particular psalm, the title shows us that
our savior, and this is the first thing I want you to see, is an
anxious, willing substitute. Nothing compelled him to die
for us. Nothing forced him to be made
sin for us. Nothing, there was nothing in
us and nothing in God himself that would make him go to the
cross unwillingly. Rather, it was his own will and
purpose to die for us. The psalm is called here to the
chief musician. It is a psalm to be given over
to the chief musician in temple worship in the house of God,
to be sung to the praise of God. It's called a psalm of David
because David wrote the psalm. And then it's upon Aduleth Shehar. The words Aduleth Shehar might
be translated the morning sacrifice, the morning hind, the hind of
the morning the morning stag or the morning deer. In fact,
the words were often used by the Jews of ancient times to
speak of the Shekinah, the glory of God, a pretty good indication
of the purpose here. Clearly, there is a reference
here to our Lord Jesus Christ as the morning sacrifice, the
Lamb of God who continually takes away the sins of the world by
the sacrifice of himself. The Lamb of God, who is the propitiatory
sacrifice for us, he is the stag of the morning. Turn over to
the Song of Solomon. Hold your hands here. We won't
be looking but just a couple of passages of scripture other
than Psalm 22. But in the Song of Solomon, three
times our Lord Jesus is spoken of this way, three times He's
spoken of as that stag of the morning, that hind of the field,
who comes leaping across the mountains, leaping across the
mountains of time, the mountains of difficulty, the mountains
of our sins, leaping across the mountains to save us. In the
Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 9, my beloved is like a roe or
a young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our
wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through
the lattice. The church here speaks during
the Old Testament as our Savior shows himself in the ordinances
of worship, in the ordinances of the law, and says, my beloved
is like a roe or a young heart, like one who is anxious to come.
And he shows himself peeking through these ordinances, peeking
through the law. He shows himself as such. Look
at verse 17. Until the daybreak and the shadows
flee away, Turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young
heart upon the mountains of Bither. Bither speaks of the rocky crags,
the high, rough mountains. Be, O Lord Jesus, like a roe
or a young heart upon the mountains of ruin, upon all the craggy
mountains caused by the fall. Look at chapter 8, verse 14. Song of Solomon, chapter 8, verse
14. Make haste, my beloved. Be thou like to a roe or to a
young heart upon the mountains of spices. All the sweet spices of gospel
promises. The Lord Jesus was from everlasting,
set up from everlasting as our blessed substitute, as the stag
of the morning. Before the day began, the day
of time began, he came forth and was coming forth from old
eternity as our substitute and savior. And when he came into
this world, he was like the stag, pursued by the dogs of this world,
pursued by Satan himself, who would devour him if he could.
All right, now, let's look at the first 21 verses of the psalm
and see something of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. My God, my God. Why hast thou forsaken me? When the Son of God was made
sin for us, Brother Rowntree, he was forsaken. What words can be spoken to describe
this? Forsaken. At the epitome of his
obedience, at the apex of his obedience as Jehovah's righteous
servant. He came here to do the will of
his father. And as he comes now to the culmination
of performing his father's will, as he dies in our room instead,
when he's made to be sin for us, he cries, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Utterly abandoned. Why? Why art thou so far from helping
me? From the words of my roaring?
Imagine that. God the Son roaring. Roaring like a wounded animal. Roaring like one in desperate
need. Roaring to his Father. Oh my
God, I cry in the daytime. But thou hearest not, and in
the night sees it, am not silent. The next time you think God's
forsaken you, remember this. The Son of God really was forsaken,
Merle Hart. You never shall be. He really was forsaken. He cried, and God stopped his
ears. He cried and roared, and his
father and our father was silent, spoke not a word. Yet the Savior
was relentless in his faith as a man. even as he suffered all
the horror of God's holy wrath. He says, my God, my God. Oh, God, teach me such faith. Teach me such faith. Why was
he forsaken? Because he was made sin for us. because he bear our sin in his
own body on the tree. He was forsaken with heavy displeasure,
with utter desertion, and yet he never loses sight of his relationship. He says, my God, my God. And in the next line, he tells
us why he's forsaken. It is because of God's holiness.
But thou art holy. He who is holy cannot tolerate
sin. Will you understand me? He who
is holy must and will punish sin. He who is holy, wherever
he finds sin, turns from it and turns against it in his fierce
anger and in his furious justice. He will by no means clear the
guilty. He's holy. And yet, this holy
one is he who inhabits the praises of Israel. How can this be? He inhabits our praises. He dwells
with and amongst the praises of a people redeemed and saved
by his grace. How can he, who is holy, save
a people like Jacob, making them princes with God? Only on the
grounds of strict justice. Only by justice being satisfied. When God sent his darling son
into this world and made him sin for us and punished him to
the full extent of divine justice until justice is satisfied, now
God Almighty is just and the justifier of all who believe. And he who is holy inhabits the
praises of sinners, saved by his grace, redeemed by the blood
of his son. Now look what our Savior says
in verses four and five. He said, Lord, not only are you
holy, but you're faithful. 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. He that believeth on me, he said,
shall not be confounded. He said, they trusted you, Lord,
and they were not put to shame. They weren't confused. They weren't
confounded. But that's our fathers. But I'm a worm. Oh. You know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, how that though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich.
He says, our fathers trusted you, and you were faithful to
them, but I'm a worm, not a man. The word might be
translated a grub worm. The word may perhaps refer to
a worm that was used to dye garments red, perhaps. But really, the
word is, I'm a maggot, not a man. Darwin, when he was made sin
for us, he was made that which is obnoxious to God. Obnoxious to God. As obnoxious
to God as a maggot is to the most delicate woman in the world. Obnoxious. I'm a worm and no
man. A reproach of men and despised
of the people. 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. He trusted that the Lord would deliver him. Let's see
if he'll deliver him. See, he delighted in him. Verse
9. Here our Savior begins to speak
of his hope, hope that is born upon the purpose of God and the
promise of God. He says, but thou art he that
took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me to 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. Do you remember what our Savior
said concerning himself? A body hast thou prepared me.
Lo, I come. to do thy will, O my God." Our
Savior's birth was remarkable. in that he was born of the Virgin
by the overshadowing power of God the Holy Spirit, conceived
in her womb without the aid of a man. His body especially prepared
to be the body of one who would redeem and save his people, one
without sin, altogether holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate
from sinners, and yet one dwelling in that body who is the infinite
God. God and man in one person, able
to suffer all the fury of God's wrath and satisfy all the justice
of God in our room instead. Turn to Psalm 139 and listen
to how he describes this body. Psalm 139. When he speaks of
this body prepared for him, He's referring not merely to his physical
body in which he suffers the wrath of God, but this body especially
prepared for him in hope is the body of his church. Psalm 139
verse 13, thou has possessed my reins. Thou has covered me
in my mother's womb. I will praise thee, for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works, and
that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from
thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the
lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance,
yet being imperfect, yet being unformed. In thy book were all
my members written. which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them." Back to our text, Psalm
22, verse 11. The Lord says, you caused me
to hope, cast me upon you from my mother's belly, and now I
cry unto you. Be not far from me, for trouble
is near. And there is none to help. Our Lord Jesus throws himself
upon the covenant engagements that he himself has made as our
substitute. And he cries to his father and
says, be not far from me. Trouble is near. But even as he prays, He says, I
must tread this winepress alone. I must bear God's judgment alone. I must bear your wrath alone. And so he braces himself for
that which he must endure. And in verse 12 begins to describe
his tormentors. Many bulls have compassed me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset
me round. They gaped upon me with their
mouths as a ravening and roaring lion. Obviously now he's using
allegorical terms. Bulls don't generally bite men. They don't generally devour human
flesh. He's using allegorical terms,
speaking of wild, strong men against him, gaping upon him,
seeking to destroy him. He's speaking of the religious
leaders of his day, the religious leaders of any day. Verse 14,
he says, I'm poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like water. It is melted in the midst of
my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a potion. My tongue cleaves to my jaws,
and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. This, my God,
my Father, is your doing and your work, for dogs Beware dogs,
beware the concision. He's talking here about these
religious leaders, these religious workmongers who despised him
and despised his gospel. Dogs have compassed me. The assembly
of the wicked, the religious he calls the assembly of the
wicked, have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my
feet. I may tell all my bones. They
look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them.
They cast lots upon my vesture. No wonder the writer of the book
of Acts, Luke, tells us that when they had fulfilled all that
was written of him, everything he endured, was spoken in the
Old Testament scriptures. It would appear that they would
look up the Old Testament and say, now what are we supposed
to do next? All this done by the hand and the will of God
for us as our substitute bears our sins in His body. They part
my garments among them, cast lots from my vesture, verse 19.
But be not thou far from me, O Lord. O my strength, haste
thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword. The Lord God said, awake, O sword,
against one that is my fellow. Smite and slay the shepherd. And he cries here now, deliver
me from the sword, the sword of your wrath and justice. Does
he cry, Lord, take it away? No. He cries, deliver me from
the sword when the sword is satisfied. Deliver me from death when death
is no more. Deliver me from punishment when
punishment is gone. Deliver me from condemnation
when condemnation is over, when my blood has put away all the
sins of my people, when my blood has satisfied all your justice
and there's no more condemnation. Deliver my soul from the sword,
my darling, my soul from the power of these dogs. Save me
from the lion's mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns
of the unicorns. And I read about everything I
could about those horns and the unicorns. And I came to a conclusion. None of those fellows knew any
more about it than I do. What's he talking about? He's
talking about something altogether allegorical. He's talking about
power. in great power, and is crying,
Lord God, You in great power have heard me." Oh, how great
His faith! How great His mercy! How great
His love for us! All His sufferings here describe
sufferings of body, as men took Him and pierced Him with thorns
on His crown, nails in his hands and in his feet, picked him up
on that piece of wood and shoved it into its socket in the ground
at Calvary, dislocating but not breaking any of his bones. In
agony, he suffers, bearing all the heat and fury of God's holy
wrath and displeasure. And in his heart and in his soul,
He bears all our sin. He made sin for us who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Behold how He loved us. You get the idea where the cause?
He loved us to the end, to the very end. And at last, he comes
forth from the grave and is delivered from the sword. Oh, that I might
know him in the power of his resurrection. and in the fellowship of his
suffering, being made conformable unto his death, that I might
know him living by him who rose from the
dead, that I might know him in the fellowship of his sufferings. Those two things. I'm beginning
to know. I know what it is to live by
Him who died and rose again. And I know what it is to have
fellowship in His sufferings. All that He endured upon the
curse tree, I endured in Him. All that He suffered, Even to
death itself, I suffered with him. Now, Lord God, make me to know him being conformable
to his death, utterly and entirely and continually committed to
the will of my God. Now, verses 21 through 31, or
22 through 31, the psalmist describes the glory that must follow the
Savior's sufferings. This will be the result of this.
Not might be, but will be. I will declare thy name unto
my brethren. In the midst of the congregation,
in the midst of the church, will I praise thee. Will declare to
my brethren who God is verse 23 Here are his brethren ye that
fear the Lord praise him all ye the seed of Jacob glorify
him and Fear him all ye the seed of Israel You chosen sons of
Jacob, made to be the Israel of God, fear and glorify him. Verse 24. For he hath not despised
nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. Neither hath he
hid his face from him, but when he cried unto him, he heard. The Lord Jesus says, God, even
the triune God, has not abhorred His afflicted one. Man of sorrows,
what a name. For the Son of God who came,
ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah, what a Savior. And if He has not despised or
abhorred this afflicted one, but heard him when he cried to
him, heard him because he cried in that he feared, surely he
will not despise you or me when we are afflicted by his hand
in chastening and in mercy. Verse 25, my praise shall be
of thee in the great congregation. I will pay my vows before them
that fear Him." The Lord Jesus, with His own
blood, entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. And thus, with His own blood,
He paid His vows. There before the world was He
lifted his hand as your surety and said, I'll redeem him. And
he's done it. He's done it. Did you hear me? He's done it! The work's finished. He's done it. And now there's
no debt for me to pay. Hear me, child of God. No debt
for you to pay. writing to folks. I get letters
almost every week. I've got half a dozen sitting
on my computer right now. I've got to try to answer folks
who are having difficulty because of foolish, ignorant preachers.
They haven't yet learned to quit paying attention to them, quit
listening to them. And they're fearful, so fearful that though
saved by God's grace, though redeemed by the precious blood
of Christ, somehow, some way or another, God's going to yet
extract from them punishment for their transgressions and
their sins. The debt has been paid by our
substitute. Bobby, that means there's no
debt for us to pay. Oh, but what about our future
sins? They were all future when he paid for them. He has satisfied fully to the
utmost all the justice He has, with one tremendous draft of
love, drunk condemnation dry. Verse 26, the meek, who are they? They are sinners who know themselves
such. Before God Almighty and trust
Jesus Christ alone as their substitute, shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise the Lord that
seek him. Your heart shall live forever. Verse 27, all the ends of the world shall
remember and turn to the Lord and all the kindreds of the nations
shall worship before them. Does that mean everybody in the
world's going to remember? Everybody in the world's going
to turn to him? No. But it does mean that God has an elect out
of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue scattered in all the
ends of the earth, and they shall remember and turn to the Lord. Verse 28, for the kingdom is
the Lord's, and he's the governor among the nations. He's the governor. He's the ruler
of the United States. And he's the ruler. He's the
governor of Uganda. He's the ruler. He's the governor
of all the British Isles. And he's the ruler. He's the
governor in India and Pakistan and Iraq. He's the governor among
the nations. All they that be fed upon the
earth shall eat and worship. And all they that go down to
the dust shall bow before him, and none can keep alive his own
soul. He's talking about God's elect
scattered among all the nations. These are they who are made fat
by God's grace. They eat and eat with satisfaction
and worship, and at last go down to the dust of death. bowing
before him, recognizing that none can keep alive his own soul,
nor would we if we could. Here's the sure result, then,
of the Savior's finished work. A seed shall serve him. There is a seed that shall serve
him. a seed scattered among the nations
of the earth, a seed scattered among all the sons of Adam, one
seed, his seed, called the seed of the woman, chosen of him,
distinguished from all other men and all other women that
shall serve him. A seed shall serve him, and this
seed shall be counted to the Lord for a generation." That
young man, 33 years old, crucified and slain, the prime of life,
having never married, shall yet have a seed to serve him. And
this seed is God's elect. They shall be counted to him
for a generation. They shall come from the east
and the west, from the north and from the south, and shall
declare one thing, his righteousness." What right have you here? His
righteousness. What right have you to enter
into his kingdom? His righteousness. What right
have you of acceptance with God? His righteousness. What right
have you to die with peace? His righteousness. His righteousness
they shall declare to who? To a people that shall be born.
This is what we do throughout our generation and throughout
our days. We declare his righteousness
to a people who shall be born. And as you hear his righteousness,
born of his spirit, you become one of those who then declare
his righteousness to a people who shall be born. And this is
what we're saying, that he hath done it. In the New Focus magazine,
I read, after I started working on this message, an article by
Brother Mahan. And he suggested, the psalm begins
with, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And it ends
with these words, he hath done this. He said, it might be translated
this way, it's finished. It's finished. That's the message
we declare. Redemption's work is done. Salvation
is not something for you to do. It's done. The putting away of
sin is done. Righteousness is done. It's finished. Behold the Lamb of God and understand
the Lord has done this. Amen.