Fourteen or fifteen years ago,
Brother Henry Mahan and I were preaching together at a meeting,
and after he got done preaching, a fellow came up to him and asked
him, said, How long will it take you to prepare that sermon? And
Henry said, About forty years. Well, if God will enable me to
deliver it, I have a message for you today that I've been
preparing for about forty years. preaching to you from a text
I have wanted to preach from for as long as I can remember.
Turn with me to Psalm 22. This psalm brings us to the place
called Calvary. Here we stand at the foot of
the cross and hear our Savior's lamentations as our sin-atoning
substitute when he was made sin for us and died under the wrath
of God in our room instead, accomplishing the redemption of our souls by
satisfying divine justice as our Savior. Psalm 22 and Isaiah
53 both portray the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ and
do so more clearly and more instructively than any other part of Old Testament
scripture. Isaiah 53 describes the sin-atoning
efficacy of Christ's death as the Lamb of God, declaring that
he shall, because of his accomplishments at Calvary, see of the travail
of his soul and shall be satisfied. That is to say, every sinner
for whom he endured all the agony of the crucifixion shall be saved
by his grace and by his blood. Psalm 22 tells us about the sufferings
he endured. In this psalm, the Lord Jesus
speaks. I dare say that Mr. Spurgeon
is correct when he suggests that every word in this psalm was
spoken by our Redeemer as He hung upon the cursed tree. The
psalm begins with the amazing cry of agony which we hear our
Savior speak in His great darkness. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? And then it closes with words
almost identical to those we find in John 19, 30. He hath
done it. That is, after our Savior had
finished everything, he came here to perform. He cried, this
is God's doing. It is finished. Someone called
this a psalm of sobs. Because in the Hebrew text, not
a single sentence is completed in the opening verses. Rather,
you have here just a series of short ejaculations, almost appearing
to be the words of one whose strength and breath are failing,
who can only utter a word or two at a time. When we read Psalm
22 and Psalm 69 together, the whole story of the crucifixion
is set before us. The gospel writers Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John repeatedly call our attention to the words of
our Savior in these psalms. First, he cries, My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? Lord God, why? Have you abandoned
me? Why won't you hear my plaintive
cries? Why won't you hear the roaring
of my soul? And then he answers, he says,
Oh my God, in the daytime, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest
not, and in the night season, and am not silent. And this is
the reason I know. Thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest
the praises of Israel. The Lord God forsook His Son
when He made His Son sin for us because God in His holiness
cannot and will not look upon or embrace sin. Then our Savior
says in verse 6, I am 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 lips. Luke
tells us the rulers derided him. The soldiers also mocked him
in fulfillment of this psalm. Verse 8, they shake their heads
saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let
him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. Matthew tells us how
these words were fulfilled. They that passed by reviled him,
wagging their heads. Likewise, also the chief priests
mocking him with the scribes and elders said, he trusted in
God. Let him deliver him now, if he
will have him. Luke puts it this way. They cried,
he saved others. Himself he cannot save. In verse
12, our Savior speaks again. Strong bulls of Bashan have compassed
me round. They have gaped upon me with
their mouths." Again, Matthew tells us, sitting down, they
watched him there. The thieves also, which were
crucified with him, cast the same in their teeth. And then
in verses 14 and 16, our Lord Jesus speaks of himself being
crucified. crucified as a common criminal,
a common felon, but this was something that was unknown to
the Jews. They did not crucify, but rather they stoned. Sometimes
they would even hang one up who was particularly looked upon
as a cursed person. But our Savior says, they pierced
my hands and my feet. All my bones are out of joint. The Roman soldiers nailing him
to the cross as instigated by the Jews, ripped his flesh and
muscles, piercing his bones in agony, he cries of his crucifixion. And then the action of those
soldiers is given in the words of verse 18, they part my garments
among them and cast lots upon my vesture. Verse 15, my tongue
cleaveth to my jaw. In Psalm 69, he says, In my thirst
they gave me vinegar to drink. And so John tells us they came
and gave him vinegar to drink. Now look at Psalm 22, verse 14.
I am poured out like water. My heart is like wax. It is melted. Psalm 69, the Savior
said, Reproach hath broken mine heart. Six times in the 69th
Psalm, that word reproach is used. The Lord of glory bore
our shame and dishonor. Bearing our sins, the Father's
face was hidden from Him because He was made sin. And when He
was forsaken of God, His heart broke within Him. Oh, what mercy,
what grace, what love our Savior has for us. For even Christ pleased
not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproached
thee fell on me." Sin is my reproach. That which causes me to blush
before God. My reproach. And all the reproaches
of God's elect fell on Christ our Savior. and his heart broke
within him. Death from a broken heart is
a rare thing. It's called by intense mental
emotion. The loud cry, the fact of death
occurring so soon without his legs being broken, the effect
of the spear that was thrust into his side, all point toward
the fact that our Savior died of a broken heart. and it all
tallies with his own words. Therefore doth my Father love
me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. By wicked
hands he was crucified and slain. By the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God he was delivered to death, and by his own will
he laid down his life for us. These things are wondrous mysterious,
profound things, but none compares to this. He died because his
heart broke with reproach before our God. In Psalm 51, we read
these words, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken
and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. The psalmist
uses the word sacrifices in the plural, but sometimes the Jews
use the plural only to emphasize the greatness of a thing. So
that when we would read in the scriptures about our Lord's lovingkindness,
often it's spoken of as the lovingkindnesses of our God, speaking of the greatness
of the thing. And David, guided by inspiration,
says the sacrifice of Christ. The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit. One thing, but so great, one
word cannot describe it. A broken and contrite heart,
O God, thou wilt not despise. The psalmist David, giving his
penitential psalm, is not saying God will accept your brokenness
or mine. God will accept your broken heart
or mine. He'll never do that. The only
sacrifice that God cannot and must not and will not despise
is the sacrifice of his own darling son in his broken heart for us. It is this sacrifice, the sacrifice
of the bleeding heart of God's own Lamb, that opens a way of
access for guilty sinners to approach the Holy God, having
their guilt removed, to approach Him with full assurance of faith,
being confident of acceptance, because this One, who is God's
sacrifice, God will never despise. This is the gospel for sinners.
It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. Paul
puts it this way. The righteousness which is of
faith speaketh on this wise. Say not in thine heart who shall
ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from above,
or who shall descend into the deep, that is, to bring up Christ
again from the dead. Faith doesn't say what has to
be done. Faith doesn't say what must I
do. Faith doesn't say what shall
I do, but rather, what sayeth it? The word is nigh thee, even
in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which
we preach. that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness, believes with reference to righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, that
is, confession made with reference to salvation. For the Scripture
saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall never be reproached,
shall never be ashamed. For there is no difference between
the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is
rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call
upon, whosoever shall worship the name of the Lord shall be
saved. Oh God enable you now, right
where you are, right where you sit, to worship this One who
died with reproach falling upon Him of a broken heart before
God our Father. Now, I want you to look with
me at the text I have had on my mind for the last two weeks
almost incessantly. This which I have been trying
to get some way to preach on for 40 years. And in the time
that remains, I want to call your attention to just this one
short but tremendous statement made by our blessed Savior. You
find it in verse 6. As He bare our sin in His own
body on the tree, our Savior cried, I am a worm and no man. The more I've contemplated this,
the more overwhelmed I've been made by it. I am a worm and no
man. When I got home, well, I came
into the office yesterday morning. We got home Friday night, right
at midnight, and I started opening mail. I had three bulletins from
different pastors and churches come across my desk that had
an article on this very text by Mr. Spurgeon. Let me read
the article. It's not very long. Listen carefully.
Spurgeon says concerning these words of our Savior, I am a worm
and no man. This is a miracle in language. How could the Lord of glory be
brought to such a basement as to be not only lower than the
angels, but even lower than men? What a contrast between I am
and I am a worm. Yet such a double nature was
found in the person of our Lord Jesus when bleeding on the tree. He felt himself to be comparable
to a helpless, powerless, downtrodden worm, passive while crushed,
and unnoticed and despised by those who trod upon him. He selects
the weakest of creatures, which is all flesh. and becomes, when
pardoned upon, writhing, quivering flesh, utterly devoid of any
might except strength to suffer. I am a worm and no man. This is the true likeness of
our Savior. In His body and in His soul,
He had become a mass of misery, the very essence of agony in
the dying which he endured for us, he cries, I am a worm and
no man. Man by nature is a worm, but
our Lord puts himself beneath man. Therefore, the scorn that
was heaped upon him and the weakness he felt is described in these
words, and no man. In the previous verses, he spoke
of the privileges and the blessings that belong to the patriarchs,
to our fathers. They cried and were heard, but
he could not obtain those privileges. The common acts of humanity were
not allowed him. He was rejected of men and forsaken
of God. How utterly he emptied himself. When I read those words I'd written
down again this morning, immediately I thought, now that gives some
understanding to these words. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, how that though He was rich, yet for your sakes
He became poor, a worm, and no man, that you through His poverty
might be made rich. Being a worm and no man, our
Lord Jesus became a reproach of men. He was the butt of their
jokes, their jeers. He became a jest, a byword, a
proverb to men, the sport of an angry mob, and despised of
the people, the very people, the very people whose bodies
he had healed. The very people who ate the loaves
and fishes, the very people whose dead kin He had raised from the
dead, now despised Him and reproached Him. Sin, you see, is worthy
of reproach and contempt. And when our Savior died bearing
our sin in His body on the tree, He was reproached and held in
contempt. He emptied himself, he humbled
himself to the utmost that we might be exalted. Someone said
the son of righteousness went ten degrees backward in the dial
of heaven that he might arise with healing in his wings for
our souls. He became a worm and no man that
we who are but sinful worms might be made saints before God. Now what is implied in these
words? I am a worm. and no man. And I say what is implied. I'm
not even about to try to tell you what the words mean. Certainly
first, there is a reference to our Savior's humanity. Turn to
Job 25. Job 25. Bildad is speaking. He speaks of men justifying themselves. He says that can't be done. In
verse 6 he says, How much less man, that is a worm, and the
Son of Man, which is a worm. Our Savior assumed our nature
and thus became a man, the Son of Man, and became a worm. Fisherman, I don't claim to be
one, but I'm learning, when he puts his hook in the river, doesn't
throw in a bare hook, but rather he covers the hook with the flesh
of a worm. If he threw in the bare hook,
the fish would never bite. But if he throws in the hook
with a worm on it, the fish bite at the worm, are taken with the
hook. One writer put it this way, the
great water serpent, Leviathan, the devil, thinking to swallow
the worm of his humanity, was caught upon the hook of his divinity,
and the hook stuck in his jaws and tore him. Thinking to destroy
Christ, he destroyed his own kingdom and lost his power forever. Christ was a worm in the sense
of being what the worm symbolizes, a weak, helpless, loathsome thing. Man in his native spiritual depravity
is just such a worm. The word is maggot. When Christ
is viewed in the glory of his divine nature, that nature, even
as his great eternal Godhead never changes, is enshrouded
in the worm of human nature, especially when our sins were
made here. And he cries, I am a worm and
no man. Here's a second thing. Certainly
these words, I am a worm and no man, have reference to our
Savior as he was looked upon by others. He was looked upon
by others as one utterly to be despised, utterly to be contemned,
one who was fully deserving of being treated as something less
than a man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people. We
read in verses 6, 7, and 8. Look at verse 7. And all they
that see me lackly discord. 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. Men scorned him. Scorned him
just as you would a weak, helpless, loathsome worm or maggot. Isaiah 53 says so. Turn there. Read it again. Isaiah
53. In the eyes of men, the Lord
of glory, the Christ of God was no man at all, but a contemptible
worm to be trampled under their feet. And so it is to this day,
men trample under their feet the blood of the everlasting
covenant, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he is despised,
Isaiah 53, 2. For he shall grow up before him
as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He hath no
form, nor comeliness. And when we see him, there's
no beauty that we should desire him. No beauty. All these idolatrous
pictures of a sweet-looking effeminate Jesus portray exactly the opposite
of what Christ appeared to be. There was no form, no beauty
that we should desire him. He had nothing about him that
was in any way physically attractive to men, most especially when
he died in our room instead. Our Lord Jesus Christ is that
one who has neither form nor comeliness. He is despised and
rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And
we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and
we esteemed him not. What men reproached him? Those
who reproach God reproach him. Those who reproach God reproach
him. Those who despise God despise
him. The reproaches of them that reproach
thee, he said, have fallen on me. Just as men honor the Father
by honoring the Son, so men reproach the Father by reproaching the
Son. In the eyes of men, men who considered
Christ to be a worm and no man, He was despised of the people.
Despised and rejected of men. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from Him. But not so with God the Father.
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." Our Savior says, they laughed me to scorn. He
was ridiculed by the Romans. mocked and ridiculed by the rulers
of his nation. His own countrymen, when they
beheld him upon the cross, mocked him. Even the thieves who were
crucified with him gnashed upon him with their teeth. They shoot
out the lip and shake the head, gestures of contempt, like little
schoolboys who just stick out their tongues and shake their
heads and wag their heads before men, mocking others, taunting
them. So he was mocked of men who shot
out the lip and shook their heads at him. Believers cry, my praise
shall be of thee, my lips shall praise thee, my soul shall be
satisfied with the marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise
thee with joyful lips. All others stick out their tongues
and wag their heads and mock Him. That's what unbelief is. It is the wagging of your head,
the sticking out of your lip at the Son of God, the thumbing
of your nose at Him. They shoot out the lip, they
shake their heads saying, He trusted on the Lord that He would
deliver Him. Let Him deliver Him, seeing He
delighted in Him. Those very words. Let me show
them to you. Turn to Matthew. Matthew chapter
27. Those very words are the words that were spoken by men
as our Savior died and they watched him. Matthew 27, 39. They that
passed by reviled him, wagging their heads. Not wagging their
heads in disbelief, as we sometimes do, but wagging their heads in
laughter. Wagging their heads, jeering
him. All that passed by him, the soldiers,
the common street-walking woman, the priests and the Pharisees
and the scribes, all passed by him wagging their heads, jeering
at him. Verse 43, they cried, He trusted
in God. Let Him deliver him now. If He'll
have him, we won't. For He said, I'm the Son of God.
Well, God has Him. He that sitteth in the heavens
shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them
in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have
I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree
the Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee. And so he says, Ask of me, and
I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance. The Jew
looked upon Christ as a worm. and treated him like that. He
was a loathsome thing to them, hated by them, trampled upon
by them, as one would trot under his feet a worthless worm. The Lord of Glory became a weak,
worthless worm that he might be a mighty Savior, though he
is both the mighty God and the Son of Man whom God made strong
for himself. Though, as Paul puts it, he liveth
by the power of God, yet he was crucified through weakness. I can't tell you how hesitant
I was preparing this message to give emphasis to those words
of inspiration. He was crucified through weakness. You can find them in 2 Corinthians
13.4. Did he become weak? Oh, yes. more weak than any man who ever
lived. All our sicknesses and diseases
were made his when he was made sin, and in utter weakness he
cries, I'm a worm, and no man a worm. What can be weaker? As Mr. Spurgeon put it, he had
no strength except strength to suffer. No strength except strength
to die. Our Lord Jesus, our ever-blessed
Savior, was trodden underfoot, trampled on, maltreated, buffeted,
and spit upon. So mocked and tormented, He seemed
like more of a worm than a man. What great shame He endured that
we might never be put to shame. What great reproach He took. that we might never be reproached.
My soul, my heart, hear these words forever. I am a worm and
no man. What great extremes. The most
infinite, holy, incomprehensible is made the most finite. strange and mysterious as it
seems, made such by an everlasting union, inseparable, he becomes
such for us. God came down to humanity. Deity
humbled itself. He emptied himself, made himself
of no reputation. This is not just a creature lowering
in the scale of creation, but rather this is God the Creator! stooping to the lowest of creatures,
a worm. God was manifest in the flesh. He humbled himself infinitely. He that is our God made this
stoop of infinite, infinite, infinite measure, and only He
could. But here our Savior descends
lower than manhood. He's I'm a worm and no man. He
sinks in the depths of abasement, in the commonness which marked
his external appearance, in the estimation that he was held in
by men, in the contemptuous treatment he received from his enemies,
trampled upon in the dust, crushed in his person on the cross. Our
Lord Jesus looked upon himself as one robbed of the dignity
of manhood. I am a worm and no man. Matthew
Henry put it this way. Man at his best is a worm, but
he became a worm and no man. Because if he had not himself
become a worm, he could not have been trampled upon as he was. He was reproached as a bad man. despised of the people as a mean,
contemptible man, and ridiculed as a foolish man, and he cries,
I am a worm and no man. But look at this from another
aspect, and I'm sure this is the principal thing intended
here. These words, I am a worm and
no man, refer to our Savior's humanity, yes. They refer to
the fact that he was despised and rejected of men, yes they
do. Those things are clear in the context. But there's another
even more important and instructive implication. The Lord Jesus has
just been crying to his father. His heart is broken as he's made
sin for us. He has been forsaken of God,
so utterly forsaken that he declares there was never a man who was
so forsaken as he. Look at verse 4, Psalm 22 verse
4. He says, Our fathers trusted
in thee, they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. Remember
what he just cried? Why art thou so far from the
words of my roaring? I cry to you day and night, and
you don't hear me. But you've heard others. You've
heard Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You've heard Moses. You've heard
our fathers who trusted in you, who cried to you. They cried
unto thee and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were
not confounded. And the next word is this, but
I am a worm and no man. A worm, a dirty, repugnant, repulsive,
nauseous thing. The word translated worm in this
passage doesn't refer to an earthworm. It doesn't refer to a glowworm.
Doesn't even refer to what we commonly would call a grub word.
The word is a maggot. Dirty, disease ridden, filthy,
vile, disgusting, repulsive. I can think of nothing alive
that is more disgusting. Equally as repulsive, it is weak. defenseless, unarmed, incapable
of strength. Look at verse 14. Our Savior
says, I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of
my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a potsherd. My tongue cleaveth to my jaws. Thou hast brought me into the
dust of death. What can be more repulsive than
the weak, worthless maggot. Yet, that's what our Savior became
for us. He became that which is and must
be utterly repulsive and nauseating to the Holy God. So much so that God could not
and would not look on him. much less embrace Him when He
made Him sin for us. Oh, my Savior, what condescension
of grace. This word worm refers not to
just any maggot, but rather it refers to a scarlet or a crimson
worm. And I don't know much about these
things. I just have to take the The word
of folks who study such things. This scarlet worm, this crimson
worm, is a worm that's found in the grain or the berry with
which scarlet was once dyed. Our Lord Jesus looked like a
scarlet worm when covered with blood, when beaten, when they
had put on him a scarlet robe in mockery, when he appeared
with bloodstained garments. as one who thawed the wine vat
alone when his garments were dyed red with his own blood,
he appears as one who is scarlet in color. And it is that precious
blood shed for us that makes our scarlet crimson sins white
as snow. Listen to this. Come now. Let
us reason together, saith the Lord. This one who was made a
scarlet worm. Let us reason together, saith
the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. When the female scarlet worm
is ready to give birth to her young, she attaches herself to
the stump of a tree. She does so to the trunk of a
tree, I'm sorry, she does so fiercely and permanently, never
to be removed from it. That's where she's fixing to
die. She gives birth but once, and all her young are born at
that one time as she is attached to the trunk of that tree. The
eggs deposited under her body are protected in the larva state
until they're hatched. and able to enter their own cycle
of life. As the mother dies, the crimson fluid stains her
body, stains the tree to which she is attached, and stains all
her little ones. So that they are all covered,
completely covered with the blood of their dying mother. Not only
that, they were all brought to life by her death at one time
on the tree. And they all live by feeding
on the dead body of their mother. What a picture of our Redeemer,
who attached himself to the tree to be forever called the crucified
Christ. by his death, giving birth at
one time to all his own, covering every one of his children with
his precious blood permanently and forever, and giving us life
by causing us to feed upon his flesh and his blood. The commercial
scarlet dyes in ancient times were extracted from the dead
bodies of those female scarlet worms. This very same word, translated
here, worm, the very same word is translated throughout the
book of Exodus particularly, and other places as well, but
particularly throughout the book of Exodus. You remember the tabernacle
curtains had to have some scarlet in them. The priest, Ephod, had
some scarlet in him. The priest's breastplate had
scarlet in it. His robe had scarlet in it. Everything died with scarlet. That's a pretty good picture
of what our Lord did for us. All by the scarlet worm were
made red. And the garments of salvation
with which Christ clothes us, those garments of salvation called
garments of fine linen, clean and white, were made clean and
white by the blood of Christ who was made a worm for us. What
a picture we have here of our blessed Savior. Dying on the
tree, shedding his blood, he brought many sons to glory. He
died for us that we might live through him. Psalm 22, verse
6, describes this word and gives us this picture of our Savior.
On Calvary's hill of sorrow, where sin's demands were paid,
and rays of hope for tomorrow across my path were laid, I see
a crimson stream of blood. It flows from Calvary. Its waves
which reach the throne of God When gloom and sadness whisper,
you sin, no use to pray. I look away to Jesus, and He
tells me to say, I see a crimson stream of blood, it flows from
Calvary. Its waves, which reach the throne
of God, are sweeping over me. And when we reach the portals
where life immortal reigns, the ransomed host grand finale will
be this glad refrain, I see a crimson stream of blood, It flows from
Calvary. Its waves, which reach the throne
of God, are sweeping over me. Now turn to Romans chapter 12,
and let me show you one more thing about this worm. Now see,
behold. The newborn scarlet worms, passing
through a stage of metamorphosis, are all transformed into their
mother's likeness. I suspect maybe this is exactly
what Paul has in mind here in Romans 12. I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. And be not conformed to this
world, but be ye transformed. Better yet, you shall most assuredly
be transformed. The Word is the present, passive
imperative of metamorphosis. You shall be transformed by the
renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and
acceptable and perfect will of God. Thank you, thank you, thank
you, our blessed Savior, for becoming a Word and no man, the
sinful man. might be made the sons of God
with you. Amen. As the Lord willing, tonight,
I'm going to try to preach to you about another word.