Pray with me, please. Gracious Father. Lord, we pray
that you would be with us. Especially today, as we seek
to know the sufferings of your son, Jesus Christ, for the salvation
of his people. Our Savior suffering for our
sin is an awesome thing to think about Lord. And we find it impossible
to comprehend. except that you would give us
an insight and an understanding. And then I doubt, Lord, that
we could understand it fully. We know only, dear Father, that
your salvation was brought at a very dear price. And so as you teach us today,
as I pray that you might, let us be comforted, not taking your
salvation as something cheap or as an insignificant thing,
but as something so very precious that we might desire it with
our whole hearts. It's in the name of our dear
Savior who died that we might have life that we pray. Amen. Open your Bibles please to Psalm
88 and verse 15. There is one word in the Bible
which by itself is a complete library of words. And that word
is Christ. Christ, the uncreated word. And when the redeemed and regenerated
child of God is brought from the atom darkness of his state
of nature into a state of grace, He becomes acquainted in a marvelous
way with this divine word, Christ. He becomes acquainted with the
name Christ in a way that others never do. He is then made wise
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, as
it says in 2 Timothy 3.15. I know that the words of Psalm
88 are written by the pen of a man. But I take them to be
the inspired words of Jesus Christ. In Psalm 88 verse 15, our Lord
and Savior said, I am afflicted. And ready to die for my youth.
For my youth up. While I suffer thy terrors, I
am distracted. It is Christ suffering for our
sin. that I would like for us to meditate
on for a while this morning. And as the Spirit of the Lord
leads his redeemed ones on in daily acts of faith, by living
on, walking with, and rejoicing in the glorious person and the
finished salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is brought also
to what the apostle calls in Colossians 2, verses 2 and 3,
all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to acknowledgment
of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, in
whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." It's
twice we've read that phrase. Everything is hidden in Christ,
isn't it? And what tends to endear this study of Christ to the awakened
soul still more is that in learning to know Christ, we learn at the
same time to know ourselves. Because in the exact proportion
as Christ is exalted in our own view, and His glory is more and
more revealed to our spiritual understanding, we sink in our
own self-esteem, and we grow out of love with ourselves. Turn
please to Job 42, verses 5 and 6. In the contemplation of Christ's
holiness, which acts like a mirror, we contrast the excellence of
Christ with our own deformity. And I chose the word deformity
intentionally. I could have said depravity,
but I chose the word deformity. We feel, as Job felt, under the
deepest sense of soul humility, after the Lord had answered him
out of the whirlwind. In Job 42, verses 5 and 6, Job
says, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now
mine eye see of thee. Wherefore, I abhor myself, and
I repent in dust and ashes. And this will be the same self-loathing
that I believe that every truly regenerated child of God has
for himself under similar circumstances. There can't be anything but a
solemn and convicting understanding of our fallen and sinful nature
when the spiritual eye is enlightened by the Holy Spirit to see the
King in his beauty. That's the way he's described
in Isaiah 33, verse 17. And so it is that the best standard,
I think, to measure the state of our salvation by is our consciousness
of the depth of our sin as our soul cries out for divine mercy. And as with a sense of our total
depravity, we have increasingly intense longings of our soul
looking towards the Lord Jesus Christ. But what makes this knowledge
of Christ so precious is that it is both open and capable of
being read and being learned by everyone who by regeneration
has been made spiritually alive to the supernatural understanding
of divine things. And while to people of profane
and vain babblings, as the Apostle calls them in 1 Timothy 6.20,
those mysteries of our holy faith are and necessarily must be hidden
from the wayfaring men, as Isaiah 35.8 called them, though fools
they shall not err therein. Turn please to Matthew 11 verses
25 and 26. I find it very interesting. that our Lord expressed himself
as being pleased with the understanding of the little ones of his people,
the lesser ones, those that are not quite as quick as others. When he said in Matthew 11, verses
25 and 26, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight." And that seems to me to be perfect evidence
of this truth, that we must be taught of God That perfect evidence
is when we see that these things of Christ are clearly seen, even
by the Lord's people, of simple and humble ability when they
are made spiritually alive to God by their new birth. It is
this fact that it does not take human intelligence to understand
the gospel, which makes me say that when God's glorious person
is made known, and his almighty salvation is fully and willingly
received and lived on in the mind and understanding of the
child of God. It is only then that we can know
all that God would have us know of Christ this side of the grave. Turn please to Philippians chapter
3 and verses 7 and 8. It seems clear to me that all
that we can know of Christ is taught to us by the Holy Spirit.
And also, that we won't have a greater or a more complete
spiritual understanding of Christ until after we come to see Christ
face to face as he is, and when we are knowing even as we are
known. Although Paul had profited more
than most others in his studies, We find Paul comparing everything
that he once had coveted with this gift of divine knowledge
and understanding of Christ into this statement. In Philippians
3, verses 7 and 8, Paul said this. He said, What things were
gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ? Yea, doubtless,
and I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord. for whom I have suffered the
loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win
Christ, and be found in him." If you think that you can learn
of Christ by your own ability or by your own marvelous intelligence,
you are sadly mistaken. In this knowledge of Christ,
which in itself becomes a complete library to the born-again My
text and the subject connected with it forms a vast volume of
knowledge. To you who have an understanding
of scripture, an understanding because you're taught of God,
you won't need me to tell you that Psalm 88 verse 15 contains
the words of our most glorious Christ. Indeed, by God's grace,
you can see clearly that they could not have been spoken by
anybody else. Look at it. It's in Psalm 88,
and I want you to look at verse 14 and look there closely. Who
else could have said to God, while I suffer thy terrors, I
am distracted. While I suffer thy terrors, I
am distracted. No one who is less than Immanuel,
no one who is less than God with us, could have accurately used
such language. Words like this do not apply
to anyone else, but only to him who is the sponsor and surety
of his people. And if he had not suffered those
terrors, the whole of the fallen race of Adam would have had to
sustain them for all eternity. So infinitely momentous are these
words of Psalm 88, and so completely have they been demonstrated in
Christ's almighty person, that in him And in his marvelous work,
this marvelous work of salvation, we have a whole library of divine
things to read and to dwell on forevermore. As I read the book
of Psalms, Psalm 88 seems to me to have this strikingly unusual
thing about it, that it is not only has reference to the Lord
Jesus Christ and to him alone, but it seems also that Christ
himself is the only speaker from the beginning of the psalm to
the end of it and although the entire book of the psalms is
about him and concerning him more or less and he is the great
object and subject of each psalm yet secondarily and subordinately
we meet with many parts in other psalms where his church is also
noticed And some of the Psalms become concerned about the union
of God's church with Christ in what they say. But that's not
true in Psalm 88. In this Psalm, there is no allusion
to anyone else. Psalm 88 is all about Christ
and all about his sacrificial work. It's all about the Son
of God who has assumed our nature. It contains an account of the
cries of the Lord Jesus, when in the days of His flesh He offered
up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears,
as it says in Hebrews 5.7. And in Psalm 88, has this additional remarkable
uniqueness about it. Please turn to Lamentations 1
and verse 12. All of the other Psalms contain
words which are a mixture A mixture which expresses gleams of joy
in the midst of grief. But here in Psalm 88, from the
first to the last, every verse is full of sorrow. Christ seems
to ask from the deep distress of his soul, a soul which is
wounded with, is surrounded with sackcloth, just as he asked in
Lamentations 1 verse 12. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." I don't
plan to preach the whole psalm today. In fact, your bulletin
is not correct. I probably will be preaching
on Psalm 88 again next week. I'm so excited about this psalm.
But today I'm just going to touch on a few significant parts of
Psalm 88. But I ask you to please remember,
for our scriptural and spiritual understanding of it, It is only
under divine teaching that we can see that the sufferings and
the death of Christ for his body, the church in time where the
result of the covenant engagements among the three persons of the
Godhead on this vast plan of grace given to the church from
all eternity. The almighty speaker is represented
in the words of this song undertook into union with his divine nature. that holy portion of our nature. And he stood forth as the head
and husband of his body, the church, in that nature, deriving
ability from the Godhead to bear all the iniquities of his people
and to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And so while accomplishing
this mighty act, this mighty act of salvation, while feeling
the heavy pressure of sin, While in himself he knew no sin, he
cried out under the anguish of his spirit, and he said, While
I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. God the Father, for his part,
agreed to accept the person and the work of God the Son who was
manifest in the flesh, accept him as a full propitiation for
the sins of his people, and by placing Christ in the law room
instead, God the Father agreed to consider all of what was done
by Christ as being done fully, as being done completely for
the whole body of the Church, as though the Church had actually
performed the same work for themselves. And then God the Holy Ghost,
for his part, agreed to make all of what Christ did effectual
in all of the eventual consequences to the church by working a meekness
in the souls of the redeemed making them happy and willing
partakers of God's grace and by forming Christ in their hearts
the hope of glory so follow me then in Psalm 88 I'm going to
read verses 1 to 7 well we're full of these high and lofty
thoughts about Christ, as we see the Son of God in our nature
in the opening of this psalm, pouring out his soul before the
Father in those strong words of sorrow. Christ prays like
this, beginning in verse 1, O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried
day and night before thee. Let my prayer come before thee,
incline thine ear unto my cry. For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws nigh unto the grave. I am counted with them
that go down into the pit. I am as a man that has no strength.
Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave,
whom thou rememberest no more. They are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest
pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lies hard upon me,
and thou hast afflicted me with all thy ways. Selah." Think about
it. Think about that that I've just
read. They are all strong expressions, and they each are unique to the
person of Jesus Christ in the days of His flesh. so that he
was by way of emphasis called the man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief as it says in Isaiah 53 verse 3 but for now look back
again at Psalm 88 in verse 15 there are many parallel scriptures
which in the same way concern our most glorious Christ which
we could look at Psalm 22 Matthew 26 38 Psalm 40 and 69 are all examples that I've listed
in there in your bulletin. You do have a bulletin this week.
I've listed them there so that if you, at home, you want to
look at them, you can, but we don't have time to read them
this morning. But there are other scriptures as well that I didn't
even list. Without going any further now
than what the words of this text in Psalm 88-15 tell us, We have
enough to meditate on about what the Lord Jesus, by the spirit
of prophecy, has stated about himself. In verse 15 of Psalm
88, Christ said, While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. First, look at the almighty speaker
himself. He says, I suffer. I suffer and
I am distracted. I. This mighty eye who speaks
to Moses from the burning bush, proclaiming the eternity of his
nature and essence in Exodus 3.14 said, I am that I am, and
he's saying it right here again. I am that I am. It's a blessing for us to discover
in scripture that all of the persons in the Godhead are bearing
testimony to this same glory. I am that I am. The father in
Psalm 89 verse 19 calls Christ his holy one and in Matthew 3
7 his beloved son in whom he is well pleased and the and the
God the Holy Ghost is said to have anointed Christ to his wonderful
operations in Isaiah 61 one where Christ says that the spirit of
the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach
good tidings under the beak. he has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound so it's a great blessing
when it is said about Christ in Philippians 2 verses 6 to
8 who being in the form of God thought of not robbery to be
equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon
him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men
and being found in the fashion as a man, he humbled himself.
God humbled himself. God became a man. Can you imagine
that? And became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. But this is just one feature
of the portrait, which is drawn by the Lord himself in Psalm
88, verse 15. The next idea that we meet with
after Christ describes the eternity of his self-existent and underrived
Godhead is that we meet with his suffering. He says, while
I suffer thy terrors. Turn please to Galatians chapter
3 in verse 13. As the head and surety of his
church, Christ agreed to suffer for the sins of his people and
consequently also for the sufferings due to sin so that everything
which was contained in the curse that was pronounced on Adam Christ
stood forth to take on himself. And he actually did take that
curse on himself. In Goliathians 3.13 it says,
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. Now turn to Hebrews 2 in verse
10. and the Holy Ghost testified
that as the surety of his church. Christ accomplished everything
that he agreed to do that he had. Entered into a covenant to do.
And Hebrews 210 it says. For it became him for whom all
things and by whom all things in in bringing many sons of the
glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. Now please turn to Jeremiah 17
in verses 9 and 10. And speaking about these terrors
which the Lord of life and glory sustained in his work as the
surety of his body, the church. I asked you. Who is able to understand
these terrors? If we go over the several statements
which are given in Scripture about this mysterious subject
of the suffering of Christ. Unless they're supernaturally
revealed to us, they cannot be understood. We cannot understand
them except that God would teach it to us. And yet, even then,
when the highest teaching, which God's preachers are unable to
preach, is brought to us in the truly regenerated Church of Christ,
We can only go a little way into the discovery and understanding
of the suffering of Christ and the salvation of his people from
their sin. Because as we are informed by
the prophet Jeremiah, our nature is in such a desperately wicked
state that none but God himself can know the full extent of our
own depravity. Jeremiah 17, verses 9 and 10.
tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord,
search the heart, God says. I try the reins even to give
every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of
his doings. And so it must be clear to us
that no mind, no mind but the mind of His who is infinite,
can know the extent of those sufferings which Christ sustained
in the redemption of his church from their sin. So when we hear
Christ say, while I suffer thy terrors, I'm distracted, we may,
and indeed we're taught to contemplate, we're taught to understand that
there was poured out on the holy burden bearer, on Jesus Christ,
the sinner's substitute and surety, all of the punishment which was
justly due to the people for whom Christ suffered and died.
I mean all of the punishment was poured out on Christ. And
that, the wrath of God included, what was due in both the first
death and in the second death. There are two deaths. There is
one which all men will suffer and there is another which is
an eternal death. The vials of wrath, according
to divine justice, were poured out on Christ, and terrors took
hold on Him as waters. Who can explain those cries when
we hear Him say in Psalm 69, verse 1, Save me, O God, for
the waters are come unto my soul. Can you imagine that? As God
pours his wrath out, it even flows in like water into Christ's
soul. That's an astounding thing, isn't
it? Who can understand the depths of misery which are contained
in language like that? And again, when Christ said in
Psalm 22, verse 1, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Can you understand the depths
of that suffering? The agonies of Christ's soul,
even from the moment of his incarnation to his death, may be contemplated
or read from the sacred records of Scripture, but they can't
come within the providence of any created power to conceive
or to understand them. And it is a remarkable thing,
too, that whatever the Lord meant to convey by the phrase, I am
distracted, This is the only place in the whole Bible where
the word distracted is used. And I know that Mark is going
to check me on that with his computer. Indeed, the inspired
writers have varied their terms of expression when they speak
about Christ's suffering for the sin of his people, as if
they were unable to convey the full idea of it. In Mark 26,
verse 38, it tells us that the Lord Jesus said, My soul is exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death. And Mark 14, 33 describes Him
as being sore amazed and to be very heavy. And Luke 22, verse
44 describes Christ as being in agony. But here we have to
rest. We really cannot go any farther.
We cannot attempt, I think, to discover very much about Christ's
suffering for our sin. We just can't explain it fully. As I call your attention to this
solemn view of our most glorious Christ, who was distracted while
suffering the terrors of the Lord, what might help us better
understand this lofty subject? might be to consider the infinite
greatness of Christ's almighty person. I remind you that the
greatness and the fullness and the all-sufficiency of Christ's
mighty salvation can only be truly known or understood at
all under divine teaching as we are taught under the divine
power of Christ's infinite nature and essence and Godhead. We seek
to know and we seek to understand the same infinite greatness which
Christ possesses in common and underived with the Father and
the Holy Ghost and in all their divine perfections. You and I
together are seeking to know from the same spiritual authority
and the teaching of the Holy Spirit of God about the infinite
suitability of Christ's person for the redemption of his people.
when by the assumption of our nature he put himself in our
law room and place to raise up his church from the ruins of
our fall in Adam. In the accomplishment of this
redemption Christ took on himself the form of a man. He bore our
sins and he carried our sorrow so that he might truly say, while
I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. May the Lord give his grace to
both you and to me to correctly understand this very lofty view
of our most glorious Christ so that we might have a spiritual
and a scriptural knowledge of the things of Christ. And since I've paused to pray,
let me stop here for one moment just to assert once again that
Although the knowledge of those divine mysteries of our holy
faith is not attainable by all of the natural abilities of the
wisest of us, yet those mysteries of Christ are brought down to
the humblest and simplest capacities, and so far as faith in them is
needful, by all that are taught of God. We cannot begin to know
or understand. until we are taught of God. We
cannot know the things of Christ. We cannot see the kingdom of
God until God gives us the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and
an understanding in our hearts. And so I hope and pray that everyone
here who is born again by the Spirit of God will be led to
see that we may and we will have a spiritual sense of the words
of Christ when he said, While I suffer thy terrors, I'm distracted."
Let me add one more thought. Just as the knowledge of Christ
is attainable only under divine teaching, so also the enjoyment
of a well-grounded interest in the things of Christ are not
only attainable in Christ, but they are among the birthright
and privileges of the Lord's people. when by the Holy Ghost
they are enabled to consider Christ as the glorious head and
surety of his people in all that he did and in all that he suffered. Because the whole body of the
church is only complete in him. You can't have a God-given knowledge
of Christ without also having a strong interest in Christ and
the things of Christ. Those who tell me that they believe
and trust in Christ and yet have little or no interest in Christ,
I find it hard to believe their confession of Christ. May the
Lord enable all of his redeemed ones to steadfastly keep in their
view the infinite grace of him who acted when he was on the
earth as their surety and who is now just as glorious in heaven
as their glorious head and husband in whom they are raised up together
and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Oh, what
a glorious day when we learn of Christ face to face. May the
Lord enable us to consider the infinite greatness of his almighty
person. who in the day of his flesh expressed
himself in the very solemn words of Psalm 88 verse 15. While I
suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. May we be enabled to see Christ
as being in his own underrived essence and nature as one of
the holy persons of the Godhead because only then will we find
in Christ the Son of God and adequate ability to understand
the executive part of salvation, which Christ worked in our nature. Each of the three persons in
Jehovah God are represented in the Word of God as being engaged
in the gracious purposes of the covenant of God's grace. But
it is impossible for the Church of God to have a true spiritual
understanding of the infinite greatness of salvation. And so, as we are brought into
a saving knowledge of his almighty person, by whom alone this mystery
of salvation was accomplished in his people, in him and through
him and by him, the knowledge of and communion is with the
Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and it is all in Jesus
Christ. Oh, that we could emphasize that.
All things, all knowledge, all things of value to us are in
Jesus Christ. When by God's grace we are given
the faith of Christ, which enables Christ's own eternal power and
Godhead to be received into the regenerated soul by divine teaching,
then we are prepared or we are made able to receive and to understand,
at least in part, the infinite greatness of Christ's salvation.
And from this divine statement in the word of God concerning
the person of Christ and his divine nature, we have then also
prepared to receive the further statement from the same unerring
source about how his assumption of our nature made him to be
suited, the suited surety and representative of his body, the
church. Chosen in him by the Father before
all worlds, and betrothed by him in union forever and anointed
in him by the Holy Ghost, the church had its being in Christ
before all time, and Christ came forth to redeem his church from
their fall in Adam's transgression. And when, by her sin, the church
of God lay open to the just judgment of the divine law, Christ fulfilled
that law, which the church had broken, And he put away sin by
the sacrifice of himself. The infinite power of the Godhead
gave the accomplishment to all that Christ did or suffered in
his human nature, because it carried with it the eternal dignity
and value of the whole work of God's salvation. Turn please
to 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21. If you look at Christ's salvation
of his people, From this point of view, is Christ being not
only a man, but as being God and whom dwelt the fullness of
the Godhead? Then I think you can see that
Christ could and he did do away with all of the penal effects
of sin. Christ's work of salvation did
away with both the evils of the first death and the horrors of
the second death. And so the everlasting righteousness
which Christ brought in becomes for all intents and purposes
the righteousness of his people. It is said of our Savior in 2
Corinthians 5 21 that God made him sin for us. I know your Bibles
may say to be sinned, but we covered that the other day, didn't
we? God made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. But I think one more
word is probably needed. to give us a finishing view of
this mighty transaction of Christ's salvation. The accomplishment
of salvation by the Son of God for His body, the Church, was
the result of covenant engagements between the three persons in
the Godhead. By all of the guilt and punishment
which were due to the Church, they all were charged only to
Christ. By the grace of God, I pray that
each of you can see personally that Jesus Christ actually bore
your sins, bore our sins in his own body on the tree when he
died for the unjust to bring us to God. So that the perfect
obedience and the shedding of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
made his redeemed perfect. Hard for me to see, hard for
me to understand, but the shedding of Christ's blood means each
of his children are perfect in the divine view. Not only perfect
from the perfection of Christ's blood, but also perfect from
its being a covenant transaction whereby we are accepted in the
beloved. Think of yourself as perfect.
Hard to do, isn't it? Here then are confirmed the firm,
sure, and unalterable purposes of God in this trinity of persons,
so that God the Father is represented in Psalm 89, verses 2 and 3,
as proclaiming, I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish
in the very heavens. How? Well, in verse three, God
says, I have made a covenant with my chosen. I have sworn
unto David, my servant. And David, of course, is a picture
of Jesus Christ. And so, too, in First Timothy
316, it is said about Christ that God was manifest in the
flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto
the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in the
glory. All the blessedness and safety.
of the redeemed in our Lord. I pray that each of you can see
not only the infinite greatness of Christ's person, but that
Christ was able to save his people from their sins. Because as Colossians
2.9 says, in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
But there is something else about Christ and our nature, being
able to save his people, which I pray that you can see clearly
too. I pray the Lord will enable us, each one, to see Christ in
our nature, taking the place of His church and people, bearing
our sins when He was under the vast pressure and the wrath of
God, which no created power could have sustained. As the Lord of
life and glory uttered the painful cry, while I suffer thy terrors,
I'm distracted. And here, if God is gracious,
we see this divine appointment open before us in all its enduring
characters, and that we are taught that it was Christ in our nature
who worked out the salvation of the Lord's people, upheld
and made effectual by the indwelling Godhead. And there is this revealed
wisdom which is made to appear in it, because as the nature
of man had sinned, that nature must obey. The law of God allowed
a change of persons, but not a change of nature. Man had earned
and had incurred his own punishment, but a man must suffer that punishment. An angel couldn't have made a
suitable payment for sin because it required that the same nature
which had been broken down, which had broken down the fence of
the divine law, pay the penalty. As Isaiah 58, 12 says, and they
that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. Thou shalt
raise up the foundations of many generations, and thou shalt be
exalted. The repair of the breach, the
restore of paths to dwell in. Moreover, as the great enemy
of souls had triumphed over our nature, Then by this divine process
of Christ's salvation, that same nature shall triumph over hell,
and so the worm Jacob is made to thresh the mountains and beat
them small as chaff, as it says in Isaiah 41 verses 14 and 15. Now turn please to Colossians
chapter 2 and verses 14 and 15. Oh, that the blessedness of that
victory which the church in her almighty head obtained over the
accused foe of God and man, when our most gracious Christ, as
Colossians 2 verses 14 and 15 says, when our most gracious
Christ blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing
it to his cross. Having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in it. But how can we acquire the ability
to understand Christ's personal sufferings and the accomplishment
of our salvation? God must be the teacher. Turn please to Psalm 18 verse
5. It is clearly stated in scripture
that all and every part of Christ's suffering is summed up in the
fact that the judgments which were passed on our first parents
at the fall were included in the punishment sustained by Christ
in his body, mind, and spirit on the cross. Christ said himself
in Psalm 18, verse 5, that the sorrows of hell compassed me
about, the snares of death prevented me. But to understand exactly
what those sorrows of hell were is impossible, I think, for a
mortal creature to understand. But it is fully stated in various
parts of Scripture that the whole human nature of Christ was compassed
with suffering for our sins. In Isaiah 53.10, Christ is said
to have made his soul an offering for sin. In Hebrews 10, 14, he
is said to have satisfied his church through the offering of
his body once for all. And that Christ yielded up his
spirit to God in the act of dying is a truth which is certified
when we are told in Luke 23, 46, that on the cross with a
loud voice he said, Father, under thy hands I commend my spirit.
And having said this, he gave up the ghost. All of which proves,
I think, that the entire human nature of Christ was involved
in suffering for the sin of his people. But to what extent or
to what painful length those sufferings reached, I think we
are unable to know. Isaiah 51, 17 tells us that Christ,
at the hand of the Lord, drank the cup of his fury. Thou hast
drunken the dregs of the cup trembling, and wrung them out.
He drank the cup of God's wrath all the way to the bottom, all
the way to the dregs. And so we find his cry in our
text, while I suffer thy terrors, I'm distracted. But we can't
add anything more than what scripture has given us. All we can do is
to think on these things as we understand that Christ's sufferings
were the result of the tremendous effect of our sin. But how infinitely
momentous his salvation must be, which could only be accomplished
by the sufferings of Christ, the only begotten Son of God.
It must be important for us to see the sufferings of Christ
for our sin in order for us to know that we have a personal
interest in the Lord's salvation, because we're told by the apostle
about the impossibility of anyone being able to escape who neglect
so great a salvation. My prayer is that none of us
would neglect this marvelous and so great a salvation which
Christ suffered for the sins of his people. Pray with me,
please. Precious Lord Jesus, we pray
that you would give to the souls of your people who are before
you today. Give them true scriptural and
spiritual appreciation in the knowledge of your person. and
of our interest in your finished work of salvation. While we hear
about your unparalleled sorrows, give us the ability, dear Lord,
to see our fellowship in them. With the ear of faith, we hear
you say that while I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. And
so we pray that the Holy Spirit might cause us to realize in
our hearts a right to your surety and redemption, And to know that
by the by stripes we are healed. And while we have seen that you
have drunk the cup of trembling, even to the drakes, and we see
that the whole curse which was pronounced at the fall has been
drained dry. Given to us, we pray to take
the cup of your salvation and to call on the name of the Lord.
May the God of peace sanctify as holy. At our whole spirit,
soul and body. would be preserved blameless
in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.