We open our Bibles this time to Psalm 22. Psalm 22, the Psalm which speaks of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. We read the first 21 verses this evening. And our text will be verses 19 through 21. Psalm 22 is Psalm of David. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night seasons, 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 confounded. 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, he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. But thou art he that took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. Many bulls have come past me. Strong bulls of Dacian have beset me. They gaped upon me with their mouths as a ravening and roaring lion. 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, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have come past me. The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones. They look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. Now our meditation for tonight, these words of prayer from the lips of Jesus. But be thou not far from me, O Lord, O my strength, 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. for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. May God give us understanding in his word. In the last weeks, we have considered the cries of anguish that Jesus Christ uttered from the cross of Jesus Christ, from his cross, as they're recorded for us in Psalm 22. We noted that in this psalm, it is as if King David, who is penning, writing these words a thousand years before the cross, it is as if the Holy Spirit retreats him into the background and he disappears almost entirely, and the Spirit of Christ directly takes over his pen to speak of his own sufferings. The voice we hear is the voice of our Savior. We see Calvary here through the eyes of Jesus who hangs upon the cross. In the gospel narratives, inspired Holy Scripture by the disciples, we see that cross through their eyes. We see it as one standing before the cross. But in this psalm, we listen from the perspective of him who is on the cross, from his experience of what was on his holy heart when he suffered there for you and for me. for the names that were written upon his breast as the high priest of God. We see the cross as it was experienced by Christ. It says, I mentioned, an x-ray of his heart, an imaging of his heart. We are given to hear the depths of his anguish. In the words of Lamentations 2, verse 12, is it nothing to you who pass by behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me. That's what's being revealed to us in this psalm. And we respond, Lord, yes, it does mean something to us. It means everything to us. But we ask the question, why does he want us to know this? Why does he want us to know and to hear even the anguish of his own heart, unspoken, but spoken to God as he is upon the cross? Can we really understand this? And the answer is no. No, we can't. We can't comprehend this scripture. We even say that to ourselves and to one another. I'm so very thankful, we say to each other, that I will never know, I will never really know what Jesus Christ suffered upon the cross for me, the hell, my own hell that I deserve for my sin. I'm very thankful that I'll never know that, that what it really was for him to be forsaken, that I might never be forsaken. Well, if that's the case, then why What does he want us to know? Why does he, to a measure, to a small measure, open up to us his own anguish of heart? The Apostle Paul we saw last week gives us the answer to that question. Philippians 3, verse 10, where Paul says that I might know him, Christ, and the power of his resurrection and that I might know the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. Paul says, I want to know, have fellowship, communion in his sufferings. I want to have as much communion as I can with those sufferings in order that my life might be conformed to the purpose for which he suffered and died. And therefore, he opens this up to us so that we might know his love for us and that we might love him. And so tonight, again, we listen to a portion of the anguish of his heart as it's given to us in Psalm 22. And we do so for two reasons before we come to the Lord's Supper. We hear verses 19 through 21, his prayers on the cross, first of all, so that at the Lord's Supper, we may lay down our burden of sin. We may lay down our guilt in confession and repentance, and that we might experience the peace of forgiveness that he has earned for us. And number two, we want to know so that we no longer walk according to ourself, but that we walk as the servants of God, doing the will of God from the heart. Consider for a few moments now his prayer to God, save me from the lion's mouth. This is a prayer, verses 19 through 21. In fact, the whole chapter is being spoken to God by Jesus. And so it teaches us that as Jesus suffered the wrath of God against our sins upon the cross, while he was doing that, in his heart, he was filling heaven with his prayers. While he was crucified, children, Jesus was flooding the throne of his heavenly Father with all of his tears and with all of his petitions. Listen to him. Be not thou far from me. Haste to help me. Deliver my soul. Save me. He's not speaking there in unbelief. He's not speaking there in panic. He is speaking, even under the suffering of God for us, in that deep agony, he is speaking out of trust and hope and love in God. He's bringing all of his needs to God in prayer as he suffers and dies. Hebrews 5 verse 7 tells us of this. It says to us that we must consider our true high priest, Jesus Christ, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared. The whole psalm makes this same point. That while he suffered, he prayed continually to God. The psalm, as you remember, vividly tells us the details of what is going to be done to him. His hands and his feet pierced, his garments torn, and men rolling dice for his tunic. The ridicule and the mockery. The psalm tells us his inward feelings in his sufferings. I am a worm. I am poured out like water. My heart is melting like racks. Yet throughout the psalm, he is conscious of God. His soul is constantly calling out to God. While he suffers on the cross, Jesus flooded heaven with his prayer. He says in the Psalm that he felt that God was not hearing him, as if there was no answer. Yet he continues to pray in hope and in trust and in love. And even then, in those three hours of darkness, when God made him to be sin for us, and when God took away his grace from him and poured the brimstone of our punishments upon him, even then, He sought God. He never turned his heart away from God. He loved God. He sought God in every moment of his sufferings. He prayed. If that is so, and it is so, if under the pressures of the agonies of his sufferings upon the cross, He continually sought his father, assured that his father would hear him. If that is so, how much more ought you and I pray and flood heaven in the midst of our trials with our prayers? We who in our trial tonight We do not bear in that trial the punishment of God for our sins. He did. How much more must we pray? He asked for God to be very near to him. Be not far from me, haste to help me, deliver me, save me, O my strength. And now in verse 19, we note the contrast. But be not far from me, O Lord. The contrast is from the preceding verses, the scene that is before him. They are rolling dice, verse 18. They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. They're rolling the dice for his tunic, which did not have any seams. They did not want to tear it apart. In other words, they do this in front of him to express, we have complete control over you. We can shame you in any way that we want to shame you. To him, he says this scene was as dogs barking and lions roaring and A bull with his horns before him seeking to gore him. There's no source of help for him save in God. And he pours out his heart, his prayers to the Heavenly Father. Let's listen to him. And let's remember that he is suffering there for the sins that we brought. He is there because of us, not simply because of the Jews, because of the Roman soldiers, but because of us. He says, be not far from me, O Lord. He sought God's presence. Have you said, have you ever felt, have you said, God is far from me? He doesn't hear me. Have you said that? O Beloved, that, when you and I say it, that is not true. We may feel that, but it's not true. And it's not true because it was true for Him when He bore our sins. He says, my strength, hasten to help me." No one could say as he said of God, oh my strength. God was his strength. He says, come quickly to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword. The sword there is the sign of that which kills, that kills in a gruesome way, in a cutting and severing way. Deliver my soul from the sword. He believed his soul was being laid open and pierced by our sins. He prays, deliver my darling from the power of the dog. There's two interpretations of that word, my darling. First interpretation would be that my darling is paralleling in the verse, my soul. Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling, so it parallels with my soul, my darling from the power of the dog. He calls his soul my darling because his soul was precious to him, his human soul, and now it's being ripped as if by a dog. The other interpretation is the one that I prefer would be, my darling, is how God actually referred to him, to his son. The word darling there means my one and only. Deliver, and this is how God would refer to him, my darling, deliver, oh Lord, your darling, the one and only who you love, the son in whom you are well pleased. Deliver him. In other words, he's pleading as the beloved Son of God, clothed in our flesh, the sinless Jesus Christ, upon whom God has laid our iniquities and our transgressions. But even then, even then, he pleads to his Father. He loves his Father. He trusts his Father. He hopes in his Father, as he suffered for you upon Calvary's cross. He pled, he prayed with strong cries. And on the basis of his sufferings, we know that now when we plead to God, it will never be in vain. It will never be in vain when we cry to God through Jesus Christ. is pleading out of a very deep abyss of atoning suffering, expiatory suffering, sufferings that are cleansing and covering and removing our sins. And he uses figurative, poetic language. He uses three figures. He says, deliver me from the power of the dog, deliver me from the mouth of the lion, deliver me from the horn of the unicorn. The word unicorn there is the attempt to translate a Hebrew word for an animal, and the Hebrew word for the animal simply is emphasizing the horn of this animal. And so it's translated unicorn. Some say that it's a rhinoceros, but probably it's simply a bull, bull with two horns, But the point is, it's the horn of this animal that brings its force and destruction. Now he's in those figurative ways describing to us his suffering in the broadest possible sense, his sufferings both from the hand of men and his deep sufferings that came to him as the sin bearer as he bore the wrath of God against our sins. And he's using figures that we need to use the eye of our imagination. We need to picture, we need to use the eye of our mind to understand something of the reality of the abyss into which he is descending. We look at each one just for a moment. Deliver my darling from the power of the dog. He had said in verse 16, for dogs, plural, have come past me. The assembly of wicked men have enclosed me. He's referring to dogs in the eastern countries, and in India, and in Jerusalem at that time. This was a very common thing of a dog, not mixed breed, but basically the same breed without any owners, without anyone to care for them, living in packs. You look at them and they actually, It's like they don't have a stomach. They're fierce in their pack. When they work together, they tear the helpless prey apart. They devour the helpless prey as a pack. He's speaking there of the terror of being ripped open by a pack of evil. The sins, our sins, that tore into him, our thoughts, our wicked works, unleashed the penalty for our sins, unleashed before him as dogs tearing him. He says, secondly, save me from the lion's mouth. Verse 13, he says, they gaped upon me with their mouth as a ravening and roaring lion. That can be a reference to death. The roar of the lion in scripture is a reference to death. 2 Timothy 4, 17, where Paul says, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. From the sentence of death, I was delivered. Death, since Adam's sin has roared over us with its power. He heard the roar of death. But children, Jesus is the true Samson, who when that lion of death roared at him, through his cross he's the true Samson who tore that lion of death apart from its jaws, and out of the carcass of that dead lion comes forth the honey. Now death is our entrance into glory. Or the lion's mouth can refer to the hellish accusations of Satan. 1 Peter 5 verse 7, The devil goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. So that Satan stood at the cross of Jesus and roared into his ears, you should have listened when I offered you the kingdom. For one bow to me, that's all, just one bow, and then you could have done what you wanted with the whole world. And as he hissed into his ears, God has forsaken you. And the very elect that the Father hath given to you to redeem have despised you. And then he says, save me from the horn of the unicorn or the bulls. Verse 12, many bulls have come past me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me. Gored, to be gored in that day by a bull was a very common experience. It was to be feared that horn would go through your bowels, through your stomach. It would rip you open, it would trod you to death. So the curse of God that he bore for our sins plunged into his own holy heart and soul, and our rebellion in our sins pierced him. Beloved, God gave him to the wild dogs, to the lion's roar, and to the goring of the bull for our sins. And he turned and cried to God in whom he hoped, trusted, and loved. As he is upon the cross, bearing our sins, and as we look upon him and as we listen to his mouth, he is silent. As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. There is no mumbling word on his part, but inwardly he is not mumbling to God. He is praying steadfastly to his God, deliver me from the mouth of the lion. and he was heard. He says it himself, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn. He is assured that God is going to save him, that God is going to hear him, his beloved son. He does not say thou wilt deliver me, thou hast delivered me. He's confident of that. You remember an earlier time when Jesus in his ministry expressed great confidence and assurance that God would hear him concerning a future work. At the grave of Lazarus, do you remember that before he went to the tomb, he stopped and he prayed and he said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me and I knew that thou hearest me always. And when he had prayed that, He came before the tomb and he said, Lazarus, come forth. He was confident that God was going to hear him. Though he bore for us the wrath of God in the three hours of darkness, though God forsook him in his just and holy wrath, his holy heart was confident that God would hear him and would answer him. and say to him, my beloved son, I receive your sacrifice. It has accomplished the forgiveness of the sins of my people. God answered him before he died on the cross, before he gave his soul to God. God answered him, and this is what God said to him. verbatim. God said, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Your sufferings have atoned for the sins of my people. Did God whisper that in his ear? No. He spoke in such a way that all could hear. Behold, the veil of the temple we read was torn in two from the top to the bottom. That was God's answer to his son's prayer. The rocks were rent. Boulders were broken in half. That was God's answer of the strength of his redemption. The graves of many were opened and the saints were seen in Jerusalem after his resurrection. That was God's answer to his prayer. The centurion confessed, truly, this man was the son of God. That was God's answer to his prayer, that God would hear him and receive his sacrifice. He received, yet upon the cross before he died, the assurance that his sufferings had not been in vain. And his son receives tonight Father's answer of his prayer, save me, deliver me, sanctify my work. He receives that answer in you and in me. When we have by grace received the benefits of his death and come to his supper, He hears the answer to his prayers when God gives us grace. He hears the answer to our prayer, to his prayer, when God gives to us at death that we may go to glory. If we ever wonder whether our prayers will be heard and answered of God through the name of Jesus Christ. If you wonder about that, then he says to you tonight, take, eat, and drink in remembrance of me, who cried out, and my father heard me. Amen. Father, we thank Thee for the sacred scriptures. We thank Thee for the atoning Savior. Now bless us as we eat and drink in remembrance of Him. Amen.