Episode Transcript
<cite>Lance Lambert:</cite>
<time>0:00</time>
<p>Quite well known Psalm, the 22nd psalm. The 22nd psalm. I'm going to read it in the standard version. The 22nd psalm from the first verse: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou answerest not; And in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. 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 put to shame. But 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 lip, they shake the head, saying, Commit thyself unto the Lord;</p>
<cite>let him deliver him:</cite>
<time>1:33</time>
<p>Let him rescue him, seeing he delighteth in him. But thou art he that took me out of the womb; Thou didst make me trust when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb; Thou art my God since my mother bare me. Be not far from me; for trouble is near; For there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me; Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gape upon me with their mouth, As a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint: My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; And thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed</p>
<cite>me:</cite>
<time>2:42</time>
<p>A company of evil-doers have inclosed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. I may count all my bones. They look and stare upon me; They part my garments among them, And upon my vesture do they cast lots. But be not thou far off, O Lord: O thou my succor, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword, My darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth; Yea, from the horns of the wild-oxen thou hast answered me. I will declare thy name unto my brethren: In the midst of the assembly will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; And stand in awe of him, all ye the seed of Israel. 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. Of thee cometh my praise in the great assembly: I will pay my vows before them that fear him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied; They shall praise the Lord that seek after</p>
<cite>him:</cite>
<time>4:12</time>
<p>Let your heart live for ever. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord; And all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's; And he is the ruler over the nations. All the fat ones of the earth shall eat and worship: All they that go down to the dust shall bow before him, Even he that cannot keep his soul alive. A seed shall serve him; It shall be told of the Lord unto the next generation. They shall come and shall declare his righteousness Unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it. This evening, I want you to turn to the 22nd Psalm. I want us to look this wonderful psalm. I'm sure that however old we are in the Lord there will be always something from this psalm for every single one of us. And certainly if we're younger in the Lord there's very much in this wonderful Psalm. The 22nd Psalm is the first and greatest of all the Messianic Psalms. Now, what do we mean by a Messianic Psalm? We mean that there are certain Psalms, which are prophetic. They predict, or they foreshow the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And these psalms we call messianic. Most of you, even the youngest of you who read the gospels, will see especially in those last chapters, the various verses and psalms are often referred to, and it said, "and so was fulfill this that was spoken of by David" or spoken of by this, or that, or the other. We call these psalms, for example, Psalm 110, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand." We call that psalm, a Messianic Psalm. Psalm 118, is another Messianic Psalm. "The stone which the builders disallowed, or rejected, the same hath been made the head of the corner. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord hath made, we will rejoice in it, and be glad." It's a Messianic Psalm. Now the greatest of these Psalms, of course, another one, we could go on and on is Psalm 24, "Who is this King of glory, the Lord of hosts, he is the King of Glory," the one for whom the gates have lifted up their heads, and so on. He's passed in for us and taken us in with him. Now, the greatest, the first Messianic Psalm, and the greatest of all the Messianic Psalms is this 22nd psalm. If you turn to Matthew 27:46, of course, we read the very well known words, "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" And of course, when we turn back to the 22nd Psalm, this is the very first verse of this Psalm. So it was on the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ, at the most terrible point of Calvary, the most somber, the most mysterious, the most awful part of the work on the cross, this psalm was on the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you look at verse 18, in Psalm 22, "They part my garments among them, and upon my vesture do they cast lots." If you look at John 19, gospel of John,</p>
<cite>chapter 19:</cite>
<time>9:06</time>
<p>24, they said, "Therefore," we'll read the last part of verse 23, "and also the coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore one to another, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose</p>
<cite>it shall be:</cite>
<time>9:28</time>
<p>that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my garments among them, And upon my vesture did they cast lots." Direct quotation of Psalm 22. And then again, if you look at verse 22 of Psalm 22, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the assembly, will I praise thee." Now that word assembly is the Hebrew word for church. And in the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, the same word is used the ecclesia, or the church. So it really is, "I will declare thy name unto my brothers in the midst of the church, will I praise thee." Now if you turn to Hebrews and chapter two, Hebrews chapter two and verse 12, we read this, we read from verse 11, "for both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brothers" or brethren, "saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation" or church, "will I sing thy praise." So this psalm, we find in the New Testament, we are told in the New Testament that it has been fulfilled again and again, in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, will you notice two other small points about this psalm? As we're taking a study on it, in this psalm, there is no confession of sin. From beginning to end, not in one single verse, is there any confession of sin. That is quite remarkable in one way. That reveals, again, its messianic nature, the Lord Jesus says, "I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men," but nowhere does he say "I am a sinner." That is very interesting. The second thing is that this Psalm has no curses in it. Now, most of you know that in quite a few of the Psalms, especially when the psalmist deals with people who've dealt hardly or unjustly with either the psalmist, or with the people of God, there are many terrible and solemn curses uttered upon those people, but not in this psalm. In spite of the fact that this psalm deals with injuries done to the one who speaks, more terrible than probably in any other psalm, there is no curse, at all, only blessing. Oh, that's an interesting point. Now, there are three main views of this psalm. I will very briefly just give you a bird's eye view of them. And then we will take the one that I believe to be the right one, and we will look at the psalm a little more clearly. There are three main views as to this psalm. First of all, the first view is that it is a record of personal experience. Simply and only a record of personal experience. Whoever wrote this psalm went through some terrible experience. And out of that terrible experience, they wrote this psalm. It might have been David, as in the superscription it says, at the beginning "A Psalm of David," it could be David, or others have suggested Hezekiah, and others have suggested Jeremiah, and some say, well, one of the other exiles. Now this is one view, that this psalm is in fact merely the record of some terrible and harrowing experience through which the writer passed. It has great value for us, for it teaches us great lessons of trust and praise, and the way the Lord can deliver, but it is the record of personal experience and no more. The second view is that this psalm is the personification of the Jewish people in exile. Now, this is the rabbinic view, the traditional rabbinic view, the exiled, persecuted, apparently forsaken of God, Jewish people. Yet their suffering, so the rabbis say, will be redemptive. And in the end, through the suffering of the Jewish people, through 1000s of years of their history, the whole world will come into tremendous blessing and fullness and glory. Prosperity and glory, when peace will reign to the ends of the earth. So this is the traditional view of the rabbis. This psalm, then, is not personal, but is the, as it were, giving voice to the soul of the Jewish people in all their suffering and persecution and exile. God's will for the nations will be fulfilled in the end through Israel, and at the point of their greatest suffering, so the rabbis say, then, at that point will come deliverance and salvation to the whole earth. This Psalm is read always in Jewish circles at the feast, or the festival of Purim, which commemorates Esther, and the great deliverance of God of the people of God, then. So you see, it's interesting, they read this psalm, always in connection with that tremendous deliverance of the Jewish people through the instrumentality of Esther and Mordecai. That is the second view. The third view is that this psalm is wholly and only predictive. That is, it is completely and only to do with the coming one, that is the Messiah, and that's why we call it a Messianic Psalm, and that it was the Spirit of God in some writer, expressing beforehand, the sufferings of Christ, of the Messiah, and the glory that would follow. Now my own feeling is this, that it is, in fact, a perfect illustration of I Peter chapter one and verse 11. Now, if you turn to I Peter chapter one, verse 11, we will read verse 10, and 11, "concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them. To whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things, which now have been announced unto you through them that preached the gospel unto you by the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven; which things angels desire to look into." Well, now, I believe that this 22nd Psalm is a perfect illustration of these words of the apostle Peter. The spirit of the Messiah, the Spirit of Christ, which was in them was testifying beforehand, the sufferings of the Messiah, and the glories which would follow, and it was revealed to these who thus spoke and wrote that it was not to them, that they were really writing not, in fact, to their own generation, but in some marvelous way, the Spirit of God made them aware, though the thing was a mystery to them, that they were ministering something to generations which were ahead. This is very much in this psalm. Now, my view, again, is that it may well have come, I would be surprised, in fact, if it doesn't, has not come out of personal experience, it seems to me that somewhere or other, the writer of this psalm had some very deep experience indeed. I'm not at all sure that he knew what it was to have his hands and his feet pierced, but he must have entered into some experience, which was interpreted to him in a way that was not himself. It was beyond him. The 22nd psalm is, in fact, the most remarkable account, listen carefully to me, those of you who are young, the most remarkable account in the whole Bible, including the New Testament, of Calvary. Now, let me say that again, the 22nd Psalm is the most remarkable account in the whole Bible, including the New Testament, of what happened at Calvary. I find this 22nd Psalm, a much more remarkable account of what happened at Calvary than the eyewitness record of the four gospel writers. All four gospel accounts are eyewitness records viewing Christ on the cross, but the 22nd Psalm is an eyewitness account of what happened at Calvary from the eyes of the one on the cross. I find that the most remarkable thing in the whole Bible. I feel sorry for people who cannot believe their Bibles, who get all tied up with this and that and the other problem. I was brought up without the Bible, I find these things, these are big things, they're not just small things they're remarkable things. How can you account for the fact that you have here a record of Calvary, not just even someone looking on what happened at Calvary, on what was going to happen at Calvary 1000 years ahead, or even if you're the most liberal of theologians, 100 years ahead, whether 1000 or 100, it's not just an account of what happened then, was going to happen at Calvary, but an account of what happened at Calvary from the eyes of the person suffering on the cross, the central figure of Golgotha. I find that quite remarkable. Furthermore, let me say this, that the 22nd Psalm is a most vivid graphic, almost journalistic, poignently revealing record. For example, take verse one, this cry of dereliction, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my groaning?" What an account of the cross. Take again, verse seven and eight, "All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they make mouths, they shake their head, saying, commit thyself unto the Lord, let him deliver him, let him rescue him, seeing he delighteth in Him." Verse nine, "but thou art he that took me out of the womb." Verse 12 "Many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round, they gape upon me with their mouth as a ravening and a roaring lion." Here's the person on the cross, telling us what it looked like to see these people with their delight in what was happening. The chief priests, the Sanhedrin, the members of the Jewish parliament, so delighted that at long last, they were liquidating this source of so much trouble in Israel. Again, verse 16, "for dogs have compassed me, a company of evildoers of enclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet." Verse 14, here is an account of crucifixion. How could this possibly be in the record? This extraordinary account of the physical effects of crucifixion, "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint." Exactly what happens in crucifixion, the weight of the body extends the whole body and the bones are pulled out of joint. "My heart is like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd." That is dehydration, exactly what takes place in crucifixion. "My tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me to the dust of death." So you've got all these remarkable things. Verse 16 and 17. "A company of evildoers have enclosed me. I may count all my bones, they look and stare upon me." Just, as it were, as the time went on, you remember, and they came to the worst part of the cross that the crowd became silent, and they just stood transfixed. Staring. I think is the most remarkable account. None of the gospels give us quite such an account as that. We may well ask, who could have written this psalm? Jeremiah certainly never had an experience like this. His feet and his hands were never pierced. He never had an experience like this. He had many harrowing experiences, but not this. David certainly never had an experience like this. Hezekiah certainly never had an experience like this. Of whom then, does the psalmist speak? Of whom does this writer speak in these things? Verse 18, of course, "They part my garments among them, and upon my vesture do they cast lots." Whatever view we take of the date, and authorship of this psalm, it was written at least two centuries before Christ. There are those who believe that it was written in the second century before Christ. But whether it was written in the second century before Christ, or in King David's time, the fact still remains that it is remarkable to so accurately predict, in a detailed manner, exactly what happened at Calvary. Furthermore, we have to ask ourselves, why the sudden and dramatic change in the center of the Psalm. Even the rabbi's have wrestled and wrestled and wrestled with this problem as to why this psalm suddenly, at the worst part of the writers experience and suffering changes into sensational triumph. So remarkable is it, that all the modern versions with absolutely no scholarship behind them have corrected the Greek, Syriac or Hebrew to read something else, they cannot believe that suddenly he says, "Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog, take me out of the mouth of the lion," and then suddenly, "from the horns of the wild oxen thou hast answered me." So your Revised Standard Version says something about my afflicted soul, just wait, I'll find it for you. "Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen!" And then it puts down Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, "thou hast answered me from the horns of the wild oxen!" Or again, you'll find your new English Bible says pretty well, the same. They all have either conjectured renderings, and so on, but the fact remains that we have a problem here, unless we understand this to be a prophecy of Calvary. This psalm dramatically changes right at the darkest point, the most solemn, the most terrible point of experience of the one suffering, suddenly it changes and something happens. And from that moment on, it's glory. It's all glory. Triumph, glory, fulfillment, salvation, life, to the ends of the earth. Of course, if we understand this, and it seems to me that we hardly need faith to believe in this when we have such evidence, it seems that if we believe that this is a prophecy of Calvary, then here we have an answer. This is the answer to it. This is exactly what happened on the cross. When the Lord Jesus cried, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" A little while afterwards, he said, "Finished!" And in that moment, the whole thing happened. The veil of the temple was rent in two from top to bottom. Rocks were split open. There was an earthquake. The thing had happened. The salvation of all who have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ was completed and accomplished. Well, I find it very, very remarkable if we look at it like this, whatever view we take of the date of authorship of this psalm, it was written by the most liberal scholarship in the second century before Christ. Therefore, it's accuracy, and the revelation of the inner history of Christ crucified is awe-inspiring. Matthew, John, Peter, none of the apostles could tell us what was happening inside of the one who was crucified. Only the Spirit of God who enabled the Lord Jesus, so the writer through the Hebrew letters tells us, "Who enabled the Lord Jesus to offer himself up to God without spot or blemish." Only the Spirit of God who enabled the Lord Jesus, to go through with the cross knew the inner history of the Son of God on the cross. And hundreds of years before the event took place, the same spirit of God inspired someone to put down in black and white, not just the events, but the inner history of the one who was to lay down his life for the salvation of the world. I say that there is no other explanation for this psalm than I Peter chapter one and verse 11. And I prefer the apostle Peter, I think of him as the best theologian the world has ever produced in this matter. He has given us a key to this psalm. He has said, "It is the Spirit of Christ in these men testifying beforehand the sufferings of the Messiah, and the glories that would follow." Whoever humanly wrote this psalm must have been conscious of something far beyond themselves and their experience, of an infinite and fathomless mystery through which they were passing. They must have been conscious of being in touch with that to which the whole Old Testament pointed. The focal point of human history, and indeed, of God's eternal purpose. Somehow, this writer had entered into the very heart of God. Now let's have a closer look at the psalm itself. It is divided into two clear parts, the first 21 verses, and here we have a problem, because it is in fact, up to the first part of verse 21, and then from the second part of verse 21, through to verse 31. The first part of this psalm is unrelieved suffering and anguish, and the second part of this psalm is triumphant praise and exaltation. Can you anywhere, find two such different themes in one sense, in one psalm? The first part, "Thou has not answered me." I hope you've noticed that verse two. "Oh, my God, I cry by day, but thou doest not answer." Thou doest not answer. "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." I believe the Lord knew what His Father's will was. I don't believe he ever got an answer to that question. Some of us don't get answers to our questions because we know the answer. Have you found that out? We ask God something that God says, "You know very well what the answer is on that. I'm saying nothing." "Thou does not answer, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" No answer. Thou doest not answer. The second part of the psalm, we could almost entitle, the last part of verse 21, "Thou hast Answered Me." Thou hast answered me. The first part we could entitle, "The Sufferings of Christ" and the second part, we could entitle, "The Glories that Follow." Now let's have a look at that first part first. I've entitled it "The Awful, Forsakeness of Christ." We go to the heart of the matter, at the beginning of this psalm in verse one. We certainly have here an account of the sufferings of Christ, as far as physical crucifixion goes, I have already mentioned that from verses 6 to 18, we have a very detailed account of the physical sufferings and mental suffering of crucifixion. We cannot minimize the physical and the mental suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, but you know, as well as I do, that, that is relatively a minimal part of what he passed through. There have been many Christian martyrs, many who have died for the faith, who have suffered as much as our Lord Jesus, physically. Physically. The physical side of our Lord's sufferings were by no means the greatest. Nevertheless, we have to say that those are real. They are only the shallows of his experience, but they are real. Verse one, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Brings us immediately, face to face with inexplicable mystery. Nor is it the fact of being forsaken by all. "Where were the blind that he had given their sight?" one could well ask, "Where were the lame that walked?" we might well ask, "the dead, that were raised? the deaf that heard? the lepers that were cleansed? the immoral that were made whole? where were they?" They had all forsaken him. Where were the disciples, but for a little group of women, for whom we have the utmost admiration, and one of the men, and two other half disciples, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. The rest had fled for their lives. But the Lord was not speaking of their forsaking him. He didn't say, My God, My God, why have they all forsaken me? That was not his question. The question that was torn out of the heart of the Son of God on the cross was, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" All this adds up to no small suffering, to be forsaken by all those that we have helped, by all those that we love, for all those that the Lord labored and lived with, those that were closest to him, adds up to no small suffering. Some of us, all of us must have known some time or another, some little shadow of this kind of thing. Yet as far as Christ is concerned, we have not touched his real suffering. When we speak of his being forsaken by everybody, it was not the physical pain, or the loneliness, or even death that was his suffering. It was there, but it was not everything. If you look at verse 6, we read, "I am a worm, and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people." That verse alone sums up the words of Isaiah, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one that we esteem stricken, smitten of God, we turned away from him. But you know, that was just the very outward, outer fringe of what our Lord passed through. You read again some other things that are in this psalm, which are quite remarkable. In verse one, "Why art thou so far from helping me? Oh, my God, I cry in the daytime. But thou answerest not, and in the night season am not silent. Now, first, there are two things here, first of all, which I find very interesting. First of all, I think in your Authorized Version, it says, "Why are thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring?" Isn't that right? Of my roaring. And in this, the Authorized Version is much nearer to the Hebrew, then the Revised Standard Version, which has put groaning, and this version has put groaning, because literally, it is exactly that, "roaring". But the translators, knowing that it was a Messianic Psalm, later on felt that groaning was more sort too dignified, that our Lord didn't roar, he groaned. But the Hebrew is he roared, just like a lion, in such pain in such distress, such pressure, that he roared, we have no account of such physical roaring, and I don't believe it was physical. I think it was his heart. I believe that God heard a roaring from the Spirit of his Son, something that was pressed out of him. That cry could only be described as a roaring. And then again, another very interesting thing is in verse 2, "Oh, my God, I cry in the daytime but thou answerest not, and in the night season, and am not silent". I don't know how they get, "and am not silent" in my version. From the Hebrew, I see that in the Revised Standard Version, they put it like this, "but find no rest." The New American Bible puts it like this, "but I have no rest." I have no rest. The Hebrew is rather beautiful, it just simply says, "and there is no silence." Read it again. "Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou answerest not and in the night season, and there is no silence. Now that could quite possibly mean there is no silence of sleep. But it may also give us a little clue to something of the oppression that our Lord went through. No silence. A thousand demonic voices trying to deflect him, to divert him, to somehow drive a wedge between him and the Father. Verse 11, is another little phrase you have, "be not far from me, for trouble is near and there is none to help". None to help. Verse 12, bulls of Bashan. We now call them bison. Verse 13, ravening and a roaring lion. Verse 16, dogs. Now of course, we in the West tend to think of dogs, as rather domestic and pleasant creatures. They have not got the connotation that dogs have in the East, but for Orientals, dogs are not domestic creatures, generally speaking. I remember how in the East, they used to organize shooting parties to go out and shoot the dogs. They were disease-ridden, they brought the most terrible scourges wherever they came, they always were in the rubbish dumps and garbage dumps and hanging around the periphery of the village or the town. They were fearful creatures. Everyone was frightened of being bitten by one of those diseased, mangy dogs. And these are the terms that the psalmist, the Holy Spirit uses, of all this suffering of our Lord. Bulls of Bashan, ravening and roaring lion, dogs, and then he speaks in verse 20 and 21, when he seems to sum it all up in four things, "deliver my soul from the sword." You may well wonder what that means, "My soul from the sword." My body from the sword we can understand, but how do you deliver your soul from the sword that must speak of something other than the physical. "My darling," this is a little word in Hebrew that you use for a daughter, for instance, a very precious daughter, my darling one, or my dear one, "from the power, the poor of the dog," it is literally the poor of the dog, "save me from the lion's mouth, and from the horns of the wild oxen." Four things: sword, poor of the dog, lion's mouth, horns of the wild oxen. It's all summed up somehow there. But even so, I don't think that we have touched really what our Lord went through, these are still only the outer shallows of it all. It was not the physical pain or the loneliness, even death itself, that was his supreme suffering, it was the untold anguish of the sinless one becoming sin for us. That was his supreme suffering. When he knew what it was, having become our sin, to be forsaken by God, for the only time in his being, and entering into an unknown and unexplored darkness as he grappled with sin and Satan. I don't think we can ever give, and it would not even be right to give, if we could, a scientific formula for what happened on the cross, nor some technical explanation of how the Lord Jesus was the Lamb of God, who bore away the sin of the world. We cannot explain it. We only know that in those six hours, filled with awesome mystery, Christ did something that no one else could do, and he saved our souls. There is, I believe, to be perfectly honest I'd probably get into trouble in some quarters, but I don't believe there's even a satisfactory theological answer to exactly what happened on the cross. All we know is that the sinless one became sin, the righteous one became unrighteousness. The just one took upon himself all the injustices of world history. We are in this psalm in the Holy of Holies. And we are face to face with the mystery of the gospel. I sometimes wonder whether in our preaching today, we have lost what the Scripture calls the mystery of the gospel. Now, I don't mean by that to make it sound mysterious, abstruse, vague, ethereal. I believe that we can preach the gospel in the most concrete terms and yet preach it in such a way from such an understanding at least a fathomless experience that it has always and will always be the mystery of the gospel. It is something which only God can initiate us into. That is a true mystery, not something which remains a mystery for us forever and ever. But it's a secret which God reveals to us, not that we understand it fully. But we have grasped something through the ministry of the Spirit of God, that somehow Jesus became the sin of this world on the cross. He who knew no sin, God made to be our sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, we are face to face with the mystery of the gospel. You will notice, again in verse 15, the last part of the verse, "And thou hast brought me into the dust of death." You will also notice in some of your modern versions that here, they've got to work on this and we have corrected renderings, and I don't know what else. Why? Because they cannot understand what it means, "Thou has brought me into the dust of death". But the Hebrew is simply, "Thou doest lay me in the dust of death". That's all, in death's dust. And that is the mystery of Calvary. It was God who in his predestinating council laid his son in the dust of death. Well, here we are, we come in this, we are standing like, as it were, as I've said before in other studies on the shore, of an ocean of unutterable anguish, of infinite suffering. We are facing the price of redemption beyond human computation. There are four scriptures, which help us to understand what happened here. Here they are, for those of you who want to just note them down, I will give them to you. Four scriptures, which I think bring us to the heart of this mystery. Isaiah 53 and verse 6, "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." And the Lord had laid on him, all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way. And here is the mystery, and the Lord hath laid on him, the iniquity of us all. Now the word iniquity is the strongest word in the Bible for sin, the iniquity of us all, strongest word in the whole of the Bible for sin. And even more wonderful is the word which really cannot be adequately translated into English, which we have, "hath laid on Him," you will see, some of you, in your margins and some of the versions you have, "Caused to gather, caused to meet on him". And that's just the idea. It's as if somehow or other the Lord has caused to come from the ends of the earth, every sin, and it's found its roosting place in our Lord Jesus Christ, as if God has gathered all the iniquity, and all the evil and all the sin of the whole of human history, upon the person of his son. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, all of human history is included in that. It's not national, it's not racial, it is the whole of human history, the whole of mankind is included, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. The second scripture is in the same chapter of Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 and verse 10. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put Him to grief, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his..." Yet it has pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put Him to grief. So behind all the sufferings of Calvary, though there were the Jewish people, though there were the Gentiles, Pontias Pilate, and Roman soldiers, chief priests, and elders, and so on. They were all gathered together in this evil motley crowd, yet behind it all it was the Lord. He hath put Him to grief. It pleased the Lord, to bruise him. "When thou shalt make his soul offering for sin." Then John chapter 3 and verse 14. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man, be lifted up". As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up. We are quite well acquainted with the fact that the Lord Jesus is called the Lamb of God. We understand that in biblical typology, but it is even more remarkable when we find here that he is called "the lifted up serpent," the serpent in Scripture only ever refers to Satan. What then could this mean? How could the Lord Jesus lifted up be like this serpent? Here we have come to the heart of the mystery is not just sins for which the Lord Jesus died. He died for sin. And sin is the root, which bears the fruit. And sin is the very poison of the serpent. Remember the Lord Jesus said, "ye are of your father, the devil, he lied from the beginning, he was a murderer from the beginning and the works of your father ye do." The serpent is in us all. We are born with the serpent in us. And when the Lord Jesus died, the Lamb of God became, as it were, the serpent. He took the sin of us all into his own body. And then we have Matthew 26, as the last scripture, Matthew 26 and verse 31. "Then saith Jesus unto them, all ye shall be offended in me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad." It is quite interesting, I will smite the shepherd, because the Lord Jesus deliberately changed the prophecy of Zechariah from "smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered," to "I will smite," making it much more strong. Meaning that his father was the one who would smite the shepherd, Jesus himself said, "I am the good shepherd, The good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep." He said, "This night, this will be fulfilled. God has said, I will smite the shepherd," exactly what happened. So now we have four things, listen very carefully. First we have, "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord had laid on him the iniquity of us all." Then we find, "it pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put him into grief." Then we find, "even as Moses lifted up the serpent, in the wilderness, even so much the Son of Man be lifted up." Some strange and mysterious thing happened in the work of the cross, where the Lord Jesus grappled with the root to this whole problem of human history, and took it into himself. And when that happened, God struck his own son. I will smite the shepherd, he withdrew. And in that moment, out of the anguished heart of the Lord Jesus came those words, which the universe had never heard before, and will never hear again, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He passes now into darkness, he passes out of our sight, we don't know exactly what happened. He goes into something beyond human comprehension. We only hear this most terrible cry. And yet, we must remember this, this cry is not a cry of unbelief, but a cry of faith in the midst of something untold and untellable. Have you noticed that the Lord Jesus never said, "God, God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He used a quite tender term, he said, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" I think we'll leave it there this evening. I will just say this, so we don't leave it sort of too far down. I'll just say this in the last three minutes. The rest of the Psalm is one of the absolute triumph. From that verse 21, where it seems that the Lord Jesus is not answered, and no one comes to his aid or help, from that moment the whole thing turns into a song of exultation and triumph. You see in verse 21, and from the horns of the wild oxen, thou doest answer me, I will tell of thy name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly, I will praise thee. These verses thrill with triumph and the change is quite dramatic and sudden. Discount all the versions giving corrections or probable renderings and so on, you'll see in your margin probable rendering so-and-so, correction so-and-so. I think that the Hebrew is correct. Thou hast answered me we understand that. Because it explains exactly what happened on the cross when the Lord Jesus, a little while after that cry of dereliction, said, "Finished!" and then said, "Father into thy hand, I commend my spirit" and died. The veil of the temple was torn in two. And it was exactly at that point, when he cried, "Finished". Scripture says, "A loud cry," whether it was that word "finished" or whether it followed it. It was that cry that betokened, the veil of the temple being torn in two, from top to bottom, we shall never know what it costs Christ. What we do know is that he finished the work. And perhaps the most lovely thing about this psalm and we'll leave that to another time, but one of the loveliest things about this psalm is the way it ends. For you see, it ends like this using a word that's so beautiful, "They shall come," they shall come, this seed, "they shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born that he hath done it". And the word "done it" is very ordinary word for he's "accomplished it" He has "performed it", he has "wrought it", he has "made it". He's done it. When you sit back and think how amazing that is that hundreds of years before Calvary, we had this explicit detailed prophecy. Listen to it again. It is quite remarkable. From verse 29, the last part, I'll read it in this version. It says, "He who cannot keep himself alive," or it could be just literally translated, "And as far as him that could not keep his soul alive, his seed shall serve him." "Yea, to him shall all the proud of the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even he who did not keep his soul alive. A seed shall serve him; men shall tell of the Lord to the coming generation, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, that he has wrought it." How wonderful it is when you think of it. Oh, we'll leave the rest of this psalm, I think to another evening, we can look at it a little more fully. And just see how wonderful it is that last part of the Psalm as well in the way that it speaks of the purpose of God fulfilled. Shall we pray? Dear Lord, we do bow before thee this evening. We know Lord that in ourselves we cannot understand thy sufferings. But Lord, what we would pray is that somehow something of the tremendous nature of what thou didst do for us would dawn upon us and from thy word, Lord, it may come to us in a new way. Just Lord what thou didst pass through for us. It is amazing to us Lord that thou doest love us so greatly. We remember that little word that we saw often, Lord, read. Likely we pass over so quickly. But his great love for the great love with which He loved us. Oh, Father how we thank thee for this love. It is quite beyond us, Lord. And we cannot understand why thou shouldst have suffered so greatly to win such ugly and insignificant and unworthy creatures such as we, for Lord, we give the nothing but trouble. Even when we're saved, we are so rebellious, so difficult, Lord, so indifferent, so hard. Lord, we have to say that we cannot understand it we marvel at such great love. And Lord, we rejoice that our Lord Jesus went through it all for us, for no one else could do it, we couldn't do it, and no one else could do it. But he did it. And he finished it. And we thank thee Father. Wilt thou take this little study this evening, Lord, and for those who have perhaps some doubts about the Word of God, start to bring home Lord, something of the wondrous nature of thy word. Help us to understand that we're dealing with something Lord that's not just men, but thy Spirit's work. And we pray, Lord, that with a right attitude, a humble and a meek, heart, a contrite spirit, we may learn from thee, and thy word may be to us what it is, living and active and able Lord to discern the intents and thoughts of the heart and a divide between soul and spirit. Father, do this work we pray in every single one of us here this evening. Take this psalm, Lord and make it live to us in a new way. May we read it and reflect upon it and meditate upon it Lord and burn into us something more of what it meant to thee, the sinless one, to bear away our sin. We ask it together in thy name. Amen.</p>
