number of passages throughout the Psalms that focus on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And we'll begin our bicycling through many of the Psalms with Psalm 22. Psalm 22. And so if you will turn with me, we will look at just a couple of verses in Psalm 22. I'm not going to make any comment at this point, but I want you to look for two things. I want you to look for the sufferings of Messiah, and then I want you to look for His exaltation. So sufferings and then glory. The word of the living God. To the choir master according to the dough of the dawn, a psalm of David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted, they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued, and you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me, they wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord, let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him. Yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like 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 within my breast. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, do not be far off. O you, my help, come quickly to my aid. Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the doll. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel. For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard when he cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation. My vows I will perform before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever. "'All the ends of the earth shall remember "'and turn to the Lord, "'and all the families of the nation "'shall worship before you, "'for kingship belongs to the Lord, "'and he rules over the nations. "'All the prosperers of the earth eat and worship. "'Before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it." Thus ends the reading of God's very Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word that it is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It is the word that comes out of your mouth, oh living God. And we pray, Lord, that you would come by your blessed Holy Spirit this evening and wield your word to pierce our own hearts with the glorious good news of Jesus, afresh. Draw us unto Yourself, O Lord, to be repenting and believing in You, to have hearts revived, to have hope and joy and peace and comfort in who You are, in Your saving work, not only upon the cross, but that You burst the bonds of death and not only came forth from the tomb bodily, physically, but you have ascended back up into heaven and been seated at the Father's right hand. And from your throne in heaven, you are at work doing mighty deeds. And Lord, each of us who love you, oh Lord, you have already been so kind to make us trophies. of your grace and saving power. And Lord, we worship you and we pray that you would warm and renew our hearts to hope in you. And Lord, that you would equip us to better live for you even this week. And Lord, that if there be any listening this evening who are apart from you, that, Lord, you would draw them unto yourself. Here I cry, O Lord, that your gospel of life and hope and forgiveness would go forth for the praise of your name. In Jesus we pray. Amen. Over in the Gospel of Luke, before we look at these Psalms, I want to remind you what we have seen from the mouth of our Lord Jesus when he was raised from the dead before he went back up into heaven. On the day that he was raised from the dead, he came and appeared to various of his disciples. And we see this account, we read it a couple of weeks ago, so I will not go back to verse 12 and 13 and read all the details, but there were two disciples that, with heavy hearts, were going from Jerusalem to a little town called Emmaus, which is about seven miles from Jerusalem. And so you can kind of picture in your mind, it would be like walking from here to Grattan. You know, good little hike. And these men were walking along, and they were talking together. And all of a sudden, a stranger comes and begins walking with them. And they, you know, hi, how you doing? This stranger says, what are you guys talking about? And they just stop right there in the road. And they look at each other and then they look at him and they said, what do you mean what are we talking about? It's what everybody is talking about. Jesus of Nazareth. And so that's where we'll pick it up, verse 19. He said to them, what things? And they said to him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was a prophet, mighty indeed in word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see. And he said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." Well, the rest of the passage goes on, it's getting late, they urge him to stay and eat supper, and it is not until he has the blessing at supper that their eyes are opened, they recognize him, and he vanishes from their sight. And notice what they say, down in verse 32. They said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road while he opened to us the scriptures? Well, they can't wait. It's nightfall at this point, but they don't care. They get up and run all the way back to Jerusalem. And they find the rest of the apostles. They burst in the door. They say, it's true. He's alive. And as they are speaking, Jesus himself came and stood in their midst. And they're all terrified. They thought that they were seeing a ghost, because, I mean, he had been crucified. And he says, do not be frightened. Touch my hands. Touch my side. See, it's really me. I'm not a ghost. I'm not a spirit. I have flesh and bones. It's really me. And then he asked him, do you have something to eat? And he ate before then. And then in verse 44, then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. That is the key that the Lord Jesus says is the summary of what we ought to learn when we read the Old Testament. Also turn with me over to the book of 1 Peter. 1 Peter. And here we have, again, a passage that reminds us of these two things that we ought to learn about Jesus Christ from the Old Testament. Look at 1 Peter 1. And we see, verse 8, though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. And I want you to notice that the men who wrote the Old Testament by the power of the Holy Spirit, while they were writing, they searched carefully. They were eaten up with curiosity about the Christ as they were writing the Old Testament. They wanted to know two things about the Christ. Look what our text in verse 11 says. They searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. And so they said, we want to know who's he going to be and when's he going to come, the person and time. Who is he? When's he going to come? And then there were two things about this Christ As they were writing, they predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. He would come and suffer, and then He would enter into His glory. Now, I can remember so vividly when I was a little boy, particularly when somebody would read a passage from the Old Testament. my eyes would just kind of glaze over. And then when I became a new Christian as a young man, I really got excited when somebody wanted to tell me about Jesus, and I could see in the New Testament clearly how the New Testament revealed the glories of Jesus. But still, my eyes would just kind of glaze over. when I would try to understand the Old Testament. But here the Lord Jesus in Luke 24 and 1 Peter 1, God tells us if we would rightly understand the Old Testament, Here's what God says we would learn. We would learn about the sufferings of Messiah and then the glory that he would experience after he had suffered. Well, the first text that we're going to look at And obviously, we're not going to get finished with this tonight, okay? So I've listed a number of Psalms, and it's not an exhaustive list. But we're just going to begin by looking at Psalm 22. Now, we looked at Psalm 22 about a year ago when we began this series on the Psalms. And I don't know if you remember all of the details of what we learned from Psalm 22, and we're not going to spend several weeks like we did then looking at Psalm 22. But I want you to just notice that beginning down in verse one, all the way down through verse 21, it focuses on the sufferings of Messiah. And then from verse 22 to the end of Psalm 22, we see the predictions of the glories that would follow his sufferings. Let's just hit a few highlights of both of these sections in the remaining few minutes that we have together. First of all, in verse 1, this Psalm begins. It's the Psalm of David. But we see that Jesus himself uttered these very words when he was dying upon the cross. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? These stirring words Jesus uttered as he died. laying down his life as the Savior. Turn with me to Mark chapter 27, and here we have one of the accounts of what happened when Jesus died on the cross in Matthew chapter 27. let's see down in verse 45 now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour so that's noon until three in the afternoon it's usually not dark at noontime but because the son of god come in the flesh was dying the land became dark And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The Lord Jesus taking upon himself the sin, the guilt. He had never done anything wrong, but as the substitute, he is taking the guilt that we deserve upon himself as the substitute. For the first time since all eternity, the father turns his back on his own son. And this was the agony that Jesus anticipated in the garden the night before. You remember, he cried out, my God, If it is possible, let this cup be taken from me. Father, if there's any way that we can accomplish this task of purchasing redemption, take this cup from me. What cup is he talking about? He's talking about the cup of God's wrath. And you can go over to Psalm 75, In Jeremiah chapter 25 and there are other passages in the Old Testament that make reference to the cup of God's wrath. Jeremiah the prophet is sent and tells all of these different nations, here you have to drink the cup, the wine of God's wrath. You have to drink every drop, even down to the crumbs in the bottom of the cup. And if people say, well, I don't want to drink it, then God told Jeremiah, you must. You have no choice. That is what sin deserves. I ought to be suffering in the very pits of hell tonight because I am a sinner fallen in Adam. I have broken all of God's holy commandments. How can I be forgiven. There was only one way. How can you be forgiven? There is only one way. And it was for the Son of God to come and become one of us and take our sin upon himself and pay the debt. And so that's how this psalm begins. the agony of the Lord Jesus being willing to take our hell upon Himself so that we could go free, so that we could be forgiven, so that our record could be expunged in the record books of heaven, so that Jesus would write with His own blood, paid in full, Over in the book of Revelation chapter 20 we have a picture of that great day. when everybody will stand before the Lord and give an account. And I want to just read in verse 11 of Revelation 20. Then I saw a great white throne, and him who is seated on it from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. The Lamb's Book of Life. So there are two sets of books that are opened on that great day. There's the Book of Deeds, and everyone was judged by what was written in the books. And Psalm 22 begins with Jesus in agony because the price of paying the debt that we owe was death. It was hell. And Jesus took that upon himself. Well, Psalm 22 goes on describing in this first section much of the agony of the Lord Jesus taking that guilt upon himself. The wonder of the gospel Look back in Psalm 22 now at verse 3 and following. And here we have the Lord describing for us the suffering of Jesus. Yet you are wholly enthroned on the praises of Israel, and you our fathers trusted, they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued, and you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock, and they make mouths at me, they wag their heads. And we could go over to the gospel accounts, and I would encourage you to read in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the account at the end of each of those gospels of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. And you'll see that people were there wagging their heads at Jesus, mocking Him. saying things like, well, you saved others, save yourself, come down from that cross. If you're the Christ, save yourself. And you remember at the beginning of the crucifixion, the two thieves were joining in, even though they were dying themselves, they joined in with the mocking. And then an amazing change took place in one of those thieves by the grace of God. And that thief, all of a sudden, he realizes, this is Messiah. And he rebukes his fellow thief. Turn with me to Luke chapter 23. Luke chapter 23. And here we have the record of this amazing events. In verse 39, one of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. This thief had faith in the Christ who was dying. He was dying. What an amazing transformation takes place. Jesus hadn't been raised from the dead yet, but this thief knew that Messiah would come into his kingdom. And he said, Jesus, remember me in the future. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And what does Jesus say to him? Verse 43, he said to him, truly I say to you, today, this very day, you will be with me in paradise. And so we see Even though Jesus is suffering, we see that He agonized, yes, but He did so with the confidence that the Father was indeed going to raise Him. And His suffering was horrifying. Look down in verse 12 of Psalm 22. Many bulls encompass me. Strong bulls' ovations surround me. They open wide their mouths at me. I'm poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast. Look down in verse 16, for dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me. They've pierced my hands and my feet. Here we see in Psalm 22, how was Jesus put to death? By crucifixion. His hands and his feet were literally crucified, pierced with those spikes. I can count all my bones, verse 17, they stare and gloat over me. Verse 18, they divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast flies. And we could go over to the gospel and read this amazing event of Jesus. in John chapter 19. It specifies in verses 23 and following When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture which says, they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. So the soldiers did these things. Isn't scripture amazing? Isn't this a fascinating fulfillment of all of these promises of the Lord? But turn back to Psalm 22. The Lord Jesus, He did agonize. He did suffer the horrors of the Father turning His back upon His own Son. But as the Lord Jesus died, even in His agony, He did so with the joy and confidence of knowing that the Father would not abandon Him. And that's what we sing about in Psalm 16. We'll close by looking at Hebrews chapter 12. And then next week we'll pick it up looking at this rest of Psalm 22 where the Lord reveals to us just a few of the encouraging, wonderful, promises that Jesus is alive after he died. In Hebrews chapter 12, we read in verses 1 and following, Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, making reference to Hebrews 11, all of those men and women of faith throughout the Old Testament time, Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. the founder or author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Jesus, even in the midst of His agony, He looked beyond The horror of what he was suffering that he would enter into the glory of life after he suffered. And the book of Hebrews says that that's how we are to live the Christian life, looking to Jesus. We're to remember that even though we live in a fallen world and we experience suffering, we are to walk by faith. Our faith is trusting in Jesus, who not only bled and died for us, but has been raised. And where is he now? This passage tells us, the end of verse two, he is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. And from his throne in heaven, the Lord Jesus is mightily at work, pouring out blessings upon us as his little children. Now, I can't resist one more little tidbit from Psalm 22. Turn back to Psalm 22. Look at verse 22. I will tell, now this is after his suffering, he's been raised from the dead, he has life. And what does the risen, exalted, seated on the throne, Jesus say? I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation I will praise you. And over in the book of Hebrews chapter 2 this verse is quoted and it tells us that one of the things Jesus As our risen Savior is doing is, from His throne in heaven, He comes by His Spirit and walks in the midst of the congregation of God's people to make the Father's name known to us. He comes and speaks the Father's name to our hearts to encourage us, to revive us, to renew our hearts, to trust in Him, to have hope in Him, to say, Lord Jesus, I need Your blood to make me clean. I need You to take care of me. Lord, I thank You that Your promises are mine because of Your saving grace, because of Your work on the cross, because You're a living Savior. My life is in Your hands. And so, Lord, You take me and use me for Your glory. Because I'm not my own anymore. I'm yours. You bought me with your precious blood. I'm yours. Oh, the glories of Jesus and the blessings he has in store for us. And we're just getting started looking at just a glimpse of the risen Christ in so many of these Psalms. Our time is up. We have to stop there tonight. But isn't Jesus a beautiful Savior? Indeed, he is. Amen. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Oh, Lord, you know the many, many times, Lord, as your little lambs we would stray to our own destruction. And Lord, the first time we heard your voice, oh Lord, what a sweet thing to hear you calling us by name to be yours. And Lord, for many of us, that was many, many, many years ago. Oh Lord, but whether we've just recently come to trust in you, or for many years, Lord, we're all in need of you continuing to come and speak your gospel to our hearts. And how we thank you for this glorious truth that that's what you are at work doing. Lord Jesus, we thank you for even coming this very night. And Lord, we pray that you would give us a heart like that thief that confessed you, Lord Jesus. Lord, we pray that you would give us ears to hear you, even this night, making the Father's name known to us and calling us to trust in you afresh. We thank you Lord Jesus that you not only were willing to suffer and that suffering began when you took on human flesh in the virgin's womb and you lived in this fallen messed up world. You know what it is to be hungry and tired and weary and tempted and cold and deserted and to have sorrow. And yet you were and are without sin. But you can sympathize with us. And we thank you that the culmination of your suffering was you dying on the cross, laying down your life willingly as the substitute. But how we thank you that death could not hold you. And you came forth from the tomb on the third day, early that morning on the first day of the week, you came forth from that tomb. And we thank you for these Psalms that we begin looking at now that encourage us to see not only that you suffered, but you are doing a mighty work. And Lord, each of us who love you, Lord, what an amazing work you've done. We were dead. Lord, there was a day that I didn't care about you, but Lord Jesus, you came as the good shepherd and you have called us to follow you, to trust in you like that thief. And Lord, we delight to be yours. Bless now as we sing. Bless, Lord, as we rejoice to come to your table. In Jesus we pray. Amen.