Psalm 22. Psalm 22. The psalm of crucifixion. That's where we are this evening. The psalm of crucifixion. Wonderful psalm. And we'll begin reading in verse 1. And of course we'll read all the way through the psalm to the verse 31. 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 on the daytime, but thou hearest 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, 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 should 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 breasts. 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 compassed me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths 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 in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a putzherd. My tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me. They of the wicked have enclosed me. I may tell all my bones, plots upon my festure, but be not thou far from me. 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. I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise him. O ye seed of Jacob, glorify him and fear him. O 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. My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation. I will pay my vows before them that fear him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise the Lord that seek him. Your heart shall live forever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn on me. And all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's, and he is the governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship him. All they that go down to the dust shall bow before him, and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him, and shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. they shall come and shall declare his righteousness onto a people that shall be born that he hath done this shall we pray thank you tonight for your word we thank you for this great psalm a psalm of prophecy lord a whole millennia ahead of its time and lord we are so glad tonight that when we read your word we understand that you are the alpha and the omega the first and the last that you know the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning and Lord that nothing takes you by surprise not even the death of Jesus which indeed was foreplanned even before the foundation of the earth. So Father we thank you tonight that we have been made part of that redemptive plan through the blood of the Lord Jesus, that we gather here tonight as a company of his people. And we pray, Father, that as we search this scripture and study it for ourselves, that you would help us to understand it and cause it to be unfolded before us so that it makes sense to us and that we can derive great comfort and strength and growth from its truths. So we ask these things in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Now we're on Psalm 22 tonight as we've just read, the Song of Crucifixion, but I want to think for a moment about where we've come so far to get to this point. We began in Psalm 2, the Psalm of the Eternal Son, and that spoke of Jesus as being the Son of God even before Bethlehem. Even before He was born in the manger, He was already the Son of God. He is eternally the Son of God. Then we consider Psalm 40, the psalm of his incarnation. Then we move from Psalm 40 to Psalm 91, the psalm of his temptation, the psalm that Satan himself quoted when he tested and tried the Lord Jesus. as he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. Then the last time we were together in the Psalms, we looked at Psalm 41, the Psalm of Betrayal, and how that Psalm predicts the actions of Judas as he turns the Lord Jesus over to the Jewish authorities. And of course after Judas betrays the Lord, the next event in his life is the crucifixion. Which brings us to this psalm, Psalm 22. Now this is indeed what we call a messianic psalm. The idea is that in the messianic psalms there is some truth that is particularly applicable to the Lord Jesus that is flagged up for us in the New Testament and applied to And that this psalm is clearly messianic is made evident by the fact that the Lord Jesus himself cited this psalm as he hung upon the cross. Look at Matthew chapter 27, if you will. Matthew chapter 27 I know this is a familiar scripture for many of you but just for those who perhaps are new or who are recently saved we want to be a help to them and of course here we are at the scene of the death of Christ and verse 46 of Matthew 27 says at about the ninth hour that's around three o'clock in the afternoon, bearing in mind the Jewish day begins at six o'clock in the morning. About the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And of course there are those who Being unfamiliar with the scriptures, when they read that cry of the Savior upon the cross, they say, well, here we see his weakness, his weak humanity, and his hour of crisis, he suffered a loss of faith. Let me tell you something, that verse is not a loss of faith, it's a statement of faith. It's a statement of faith. He is pointing the people that are at His feet gathered around that cross back to this psalm that was written a thousand years before so that they can go there and read and look and think about the things that they're seeing and realize that all that's unfolding on Calvary's hill was purposed in the plan of God before time itself began. He was doing His Father's will. Now of course there are a number of Psalms that speak of the death of Christ. We'll look at another one of these next week. But each one of them looks at the death of the cross from a different standpoint. But by far this Psalm, Psalm 22, is the most important of those Psalms because of the wealth of prophetic detail that's given to the reader concerning the sacrificial death of the Saviour. In fact, this psalm contains 33 items that describe death by crucifixion. Isn't that remarkable? In one psalm, 33 prophecies pertaining to death by crucifixion. This is a psalm that's a deep well from which we might draw great truth surrounding our Savior's sacrifice for sins. Now, this is the first in a trilogy of Psalms. Psalm 22, Psalm 23, and Psalm 24 belong together. All those three Psalms form a trilogy. And in Psalm 22, it speaks of the Lord as the Savior, as the Sin Bearer. In Psalm 23, of course, He is the Shepherd. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. We know that Psalm so well. And in Psalm 24 he's the sovereign. We'll look at Psalm 24 in this series. We'll see him as the one who comes to rule and to reign. So in Psalm 22 we are looking at the cross. In Psalm 23 we're looking at the crook. In Psalm 24 we're looking at the crown. And so we always put those three psalms together. But this psalm must, by necessity, come first. Because unless there's a cross, there'll be no crook. And unless there's a cross, there certainly will be no crown. Jesus must first go to the cross, and He must purchase our redemption before He reveals Himself to us as our Great Shepherd, and ultimately as our Eternal King and Lord. So detailed is this psalm concerning the cross that it's actually, along with Isaiah 53, the two scriptures, those two scriptures, Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, are the two scriptures that are deliberately omitted by Orthodox Jews in their readings in the synagogue. They don't read Psalm 22. Isn't that interesting? Why? Because it so evidently speaks of Christ. And they don't want Christ. We will not have this man to rule over us. And so they ignore this passage of scripture. And really Jesus, no wonder he describes that kind of Jew as belonging to the synagogue of Satan. Now that's not an anti-Semitic remark. It's not saying that we hate Jews or we hate Israel. Quite the opposite. We love the Jewish people. Because unto them was given the oracles of God. We love the Jewish people because from them came the Savior. And we love Israel because we know that the Lord Jesus is going to come and rule and reign from Jerusalem. And that Israel will ultimately be the center of world government under His rule. But when we say that they're the synagogue of Satan, we're not saying anything against Israel, we're not even saying anything against Jewish people in general, but we're saying this, that when anybody, Jew or Gentile, seeks to bypass Christ in their religious notions, they are really performing Satan's work. We must come to the cross. Now, as to the psalm itself, the whole psalm hinges upon the 21st verse. There is a change in tone between the first 21 verses and the last section of the psalm after verse 1. 21. Before the 21st Psalm, or 21st verse, the psalm is dark, the psalm is even, dare I say it, gruesome. But after the 21st verse, it's a psalm that is uplifting. It's a psalm that's triumphant. It's a psalm that's encouraging. It's a psalm that sparks a, strikes a note of victory. And so we're going to look at it just that way. We're going to basically make that 21st verse the pivot, the point at which this whole psalm swings. And we're going to look at the first 21 verses and then look at the remainder of the psalm. And so we're going to begin by thinking about the suffering of the Lord. Now if you go back to verse 1 of this psalm and you look above the first verse you'll see a curious little title that is set over the first verse. It says, to the chief musician upon a geleth shahar, a psalm of David. Now, there were three men that fitted the bill of a chief musician under David's reign. And they are Asaph, Haman, and Jadathan. And of these three, Jewish history records that Haman invariably received every psalm of praise. That was his role. He was in charge of all the psalms of praise that concerned Jehovah God and that would most certainly have included this particular psalm before us this evening. You know, when you think about Haman's home, you know there's some homes that are just blessed musically, aren't there? I mean, there's just some homes, you know, where, you know, Mama sang bass and Daddy sang tenor, you know, that kind of home. And Haman's was that kind of home. Look in 1 Chronicles chapter 25. 1 Chronicles chapter 25. Our kids, Paul, as you know, can play piano, and Claire can play piano very well, both of them. And so we've been used all these years to hearing piano music in our house. And now Claire's gone, of course, and Paul's only there for to get his meals most of the time. And we kind of miss the piano being played, although I must have confessed when they were there playing it many a night, I said, please stop. You know, I want to watch the news or whatever it was. I want to read here or whatever I was doing. But you know, reflecting back upon it, it was really a wonderful thing to have a home full of sacred music being played regularly. And Haman's home was like that. Look in 1 Chronicles chapter 25 and verse 5. It says, All these were the sons of Haman, the king's seer. in the words of God to lift up the horn. That's his purpose. And God gave to Haman fourteen sons and three daughters. That's a lot of child benefit. And all these were under the hands of their father. Notice, for song in the house of the Lord with cymbals, psalteries and harps for the service of the house of God according to the king's order to Asaph, Jedethon and Haman. So you can imagine what a musical household this is. I would imagine being the next door neighbour to Haman must have been a nightmare. That house was playing cymbals and harps and singing all day long. That Haman family, they just never shut up. But that was their role. They were praising God all the time. Now we might wonder then, as we come to Psalm 22, why King David, in all of his wisdom, would send a song that is so filled with images of horror and death to a man whose music was primarily characterized with joy. And the key to understanding that is found in that little title above verse 1, Ejelleth Shehar. You see, that phrase means quite literally, the Hound of the Morning. And the ancient synagogue, they would take the title I was applying to the Shekinah glory, the glory of God that descended and dwelt as God's presence over the Ark of the Covenant, over the Mercy Seat, in the Holy of Holies, in the Tabernacle. And so this is really a symbol in Judaism of a new day dawning. It's a symbol of redemption. It's saying that, you know, as dark as the night is, there's a new day coming. In fact, that's another way in which this terminology is used. It's a reference to the early light preceding the dawn of the morning. You know, as you can imagine, the sun rising. In fact, I've watched this. You watch the sun rising up over Mount Olivet, and these great beams of light come shining across the mountains. And that was called the hind of the morning. And that's the picture. Yes, it's dark. Yes, we're at Calvary. Yes, terrible things happened. But it's leading to a new day dawning. It's leading to a bright and glorious morning. It's leading to new beginnings and new starts and a fresh outlook. And so the musician Haman is charged with filing this psalm among those psalms of praise that were to be sung. Now, the suffering of the Lord in this psalm can be seen in three levels. In the first place, it was a divine act. It was founded in the will of God. Then secondly, it was a despicable act because it was forced by the wickedness of men. And then thirdly, it is a diabolical act because it was forged by the power of Satan. And we're going to think about the psalm, in this section of the psalm, under those three headings. And the first thing I want you to see in verses 1 to 6 is that in this psalm we see the Lord Jesus abandoned by God. Verse 1. 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 season, and I'm 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. They were not disappointed or let down. But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despise of the people. Now the first words in this psalm are unmistakably those of the Lord Jesus. Hanging upon the cross, he cries in the Aramaic tongue, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? those who heard that cry on that day misunderstood what the Lord Jesus was saying. Some of them thought he was calling to Elijah to help him and to take him from the cross but they were mistaken. You know this was not a cry of weakness and all the way through this psalm from the first verse we understand that Christ is so Now this cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, is a statement highlighting the moment of judicial separation from God the Father. Judicial separation from God the Father. Now of course, in essence, the Father can never be separated from the Son. But judicially, Jesus was separated from His Father in that moment. You see, on the cross, Christ becomes sin for us. He becomes sin. Your sin. My sin. is nailed to the cross. And from that point of view, He personifies our sin. He identifies with our sin. All of our sin is laid upon Him. You know, and in that moment, God the Father abandons Him. He forsakes Him. He rejects Him. Now when you think about this cry, you know, He could suffer the betrayal of Judas. He could even take the denial of Peter, but to consider to face abandonment of his own father. This was the ultimate. This was a terrible, terrible moment for Christ in spiritual terms. And his heart cries out. You see the rest of us cry there in that verse. Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my And the word roaring there refers to the noise an animal makes when it's in pain. You ever hear a dog when it's knocked down? It's a terrible sound, isn't it? It's just a horrible sound. And that's the picture of the Lord Jesus, not of a dog, but of an animal that's crying. crying in pain, screaming in agony, and it's not the physical agony now that's causing him to make this cry, it's the spiritual agony, it's the realization that he has become sin, that he's embodied all of our wrongdoing, and God the Father now is turning from him, and forsaking him, and abandoning him. You say, well why was he forsaken? Why would God turn his back upon his own son? Why wasn't he being rescued from that cross? Well, the answer comes in the third verse. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. There's why. You see, a holy God can't look upon sin. And this is the problem that men have. You know, we're in sin. God is holy. And a lot of people think, well, it's no big deal, I can get into heaven as I am, I don't need Jesus, I can get by without Christ. But you've got to understand something, God has a natural repulsion concerning sin. It's against his divine and holy nature to embrace it. It's against everything that's called holy for Him to allow you into heaven without the sin question being dealt with. Hence the cross. Jesus is dealing with the sin problem on the cross. And He becomes us. And in that moment, God the Father rejects Him. But when we put our trust in Him, God the Father accepts us. What a wonderful exchange. We give him our sin, he gives us his righteousness. That's what salvation is. It's brilliant. It's amazing. Words fill you really. It's beyond words really. Now, contrast the reaction of the Father toward the Lord Jesus with his reaction toward the prophets of old and Israel of old. See in verses 4 and 5 there is a distinction, a difference in the way that he treated Israel of old and the way he treats his own son. He says our fathers trusted in thee. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and others. 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. You know when the Israelites were in Egypt, what did they do? They cried unto the Lord. What did the Lord do? He delivered them. When they were in Babylon, what did they do? They cried unto the Lord. What did God do? He allowed them to return from exile. He delivered them. But there's no such delivery for Christ. There's no such rescue for Him. He has to face the cross, and He has to face the cross alone, without the slightest shred of mercy. Not an ounce of mercy is shown toward Him. And so, as if to underline all of this, he brings to bear the first of his three messianic titles in this psalm. Notice what he says in verse 6, But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people. Here's a strange thing for the Lord Jesus to say, I am a worm I am a worm. He's saying I'm not being treated the way Moses was being treated. I'm not being treated the way that Ezra and Nehemiah were treated. I'm not being dealt with as they were dealt with. I'm not being treated as a peer of theirs. I'm being treated as a worm. As no man. As somebody who does not count in God's estimation. As someone who has no sway. with God the Father. Isn't that remarkable? You know, one preacher said this, on the cross I glory in him. I cannot understand how he would call himself a worm. He said this was the only time when he read his Bible that he felt like contradicting the Lord Jesus. But listen, the Lord Jesus never makes any mistakes. If he says he was a worm, He was a worm. And there must be some reason for him saying, I am a worm. And indeed there is. You see, the Hebrew word for worm is the word talahath. And it's translated 31 times in the Old Testament with the word scarlet or crimson. Now that gives us a clue. The Tala of the oriental world is a little grub. I'll show you a picture of it. Here it is. It doesn't look so little on the screen. But believe me, it's a little grub. It's a little grub that lives on cacti. similar to the cochineal insect which you find in South America. It's just a small little grub that sits there on that plant and various cacti. And it is used for extracting dye. So to give you an idea of the size of these things, there's a handful of them. They're quite tiny really, tiny little grubs. And basically what you do to extract the dye is you just squeeze them like so. And when you squeeze them, Where's my picture gone? There it is. You just squeeze them and you see the red dye smear on the palm of the hand of that person in the photograph. And that's how they got red dye. It's very precious. It was very painstaking time. By the way, if you're thinking this is gross, I should let you know that almost everything that you eat that is red-coloured, like strawberry yoghurt, has this stuff in it. Did you know that? That cheered you up, didn't it? Anything that's red colored, just about, in your cupboard, has a little bit of this extract in it. If you look in there, there's a cottony extract is in your red. Don't turn up here. You've been eating that stuff for years. Never bothered you, has it? Anyway, but you get the picture, OK? So you have this little grub, and it's pressed down upon by a thumb or a finger, and red crimson dye is drawn from it. Now, Moses used this product to dye the garments of Israel's high priests. And what Jesus was saying here was this. He says, I'm like the tola. I'm like the cochineal grub. I am dying on this cross. I'm being crushed on this cross. As I'm being crushed. My blood is pouring from me. That's the picture. He's showing himself as a bloody mess upon the cross. Prophet Isaiah said, come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. Let your sins be as what? Scarlet. Let your sins be as scarlet. Scarlet is the color of sin. You know, sometimes in Sunday school classes we teach, oh, sin is black. No, sin isn't black. Sin is scarlet. And the only thing that can make scarlet look white is if you few it through scarlet. You know, if you have a little bit of glass and you make the glass the scarlet and you look at something that's scarlet, it turns the head and you're looking at white, it disappears. And that's what Jesus does with our sin. You know what the word scarlet literally means in the Hebrew? It literally means the splendor of a worm. Isn't that a lovely phrase? The splendor of a worm. So in the first instance he is abandoned by God. He's treated like he's as lowly an insect as this little grub. And he is put under the pressure of the cross and he sheds his blood for our sin. But not only is he abandoned by God, he is abused by men. Look in verse 7. 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, saying he delighteth in him. But thou art he that took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when I lay upon my mother's breasts. 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 compassed me, strong bulls of Pashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths as a ravening and as 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 in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a putz herd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed 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 fester. But be not thou 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. All they that see me, he says, laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip. You know, Jesus was made a laughing stock upon the cross. You know, we look at the cross today and we always sort of see it as a symbol that we look at with reverence. You know, you go into churches of various shades and you'll see a scene of the cross and you'll have the women bowing down before it. This always looks very reverent and sacred. But let me tell you something, when Jesus was on that cross, people were mocking Him. There was no sense of the holy. There was no sense that this was a great moment in history that people should savour and should relish in the glory of God for. No, they laughed at Him. You think about it. Christ the Creator, hanging upon the tree, a cross of His own creation, being mocked aloud by His own creatures, hung out to shame. Does that say something about the long-suffering of God? If you'd been God, if you were God, I were God, we'd have fixed it, wouldn't we? I said, I'm not taking this. It's all the line at the laughter. That's just too far. I'd have come down there and sorted it out, wouldn't you? But Jesus, he stuck to the cross. He didn't come down. People sometimes, you know, say to me and say to you, as a Christian, you know, if there's a God, why does he do something about all the evil in the world? And why does he do something about all the terrible things that happen, the wars and the troubles and the sufferings and the famines? You know, if ever there was a moment in history that you would have expected God to intervene in the affairs of man, this was that moment. But heaven was silent. Why? For the love of us. For the love of us. It says here, it's a curious little phrase, they shoot out the lip. That's a Jewish insult, okay? Now you can try this if you wish. What you gotta do is put your top lip over your bottom lip. Do you wanna try that? Go ahead, do it. There you go, Dan, you got it. And then you just breathe down like this. And that's a Middle Eastern way of insulting somebody. It's like spitting on somebody. So they were walking around that cross going, The whole time, spitting out the lint, laughing, look at him! And that was going on all around the foot of the cross. It's utter contempt for him. They laughed, they mocked, they despised him. They cried out, he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver and sin he delighteth in him. That's exactly what they said. He saved others himself, he cannot save. What did the thief on the cross say? You know, if you're the saviour, save us and yourself. You can't do it. And even the thief is mocking him. You know, yet here is David's psalm a thousand years before the event, predicting not only what would happen, but what would be said to the very word. verbatim what would be said as Jesus died upon the cross. What a word of prophecy. Verses 9 to 11, there's a reference to the incarnation. 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. Who but Jesus could say that? Thou art my God from my mother's belly. You couldn't say that. I couldn't say that. The Bible says that we were shaped in sin. We're conceived in sin and iniquity and we're estranged from the womb. That's what the Bible says. In fact, it even goes as far as to say that the wicked are estranged from the womb. That they go astray speaking lies. Almost from birth they're speaking lies. Almost as soon as you can talk. It's not very long before you articulate a lie, is it? Nobody has to teach it. It comes naturally. You know, there's no lessons in school on how to tell a lie. Every kid has learned that long before he gets to school. But Jesus, he has this unique testimony. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Now we come to verse 12, and this is a fascinating verse. Verse 12 says, many bulls have compassed me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me about. All right, have you ever seen a bull from Bashan? You probably haven't, most of you I should think. You know, most of us are city folks, we don't know one bull from another, isn't that right? I was preaching down in Devon earlier in the year and we were on a farm and the farmer says to me, we have Dexter cows. And I looked at him like, great. And he says to me, you know what a Dexter cow is, don't you? And I said, He says, they have them all over Ireland. How come you don't know them? I said, because I live in the city. And the only cow I ever see is wrapped in cellophane and Tesco's. So I'm afraid I don't know what a Dexter cow looks like. I can't tell one cow from another. So he took me out to show me these cows, which are a unique breed of cattle. They're quite small. They're quite miniature. And he had a bull in the field that he was trying to get some of the cows to calf. But if the Dexter cow is small of stature, the bull of Bashan is the opposite. Here is a bull of Bashan. It's a big boy. And I've seen these actually in Bashan up in the northern region of Israel. I mean they are just beautiful. beautiful marvel magnificent beats I mean just monsters you know just all muscle and uh you know here's how the Lord sees himself at the cross he he says these bulls have compassed him that they that they that they are surrounding him that they're you know that they're out to get him many bulls have compassed me strong bulls of Bashan have set me around now what's he referring to Look at Amos, chapter 4. Amos, chapter 4, and I'm hoping J.J. and Jim will get to Amos before anybody else. Because they've been learning the Old Testament books in their Bible school class. Amos, chapter 4. Look at verse 1, chapter 4. Hear this word, ye kind or cattle of Samaria, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, bring and let us drink. You see what the Lord is speaking of there? He's speaking of the leaders of Israel. He's speaking of the chief priests. He's speaking of the scribes. He's speaking in the Psalm 22 of those who were responsible primarily for his arrest and his illegal Those who ultimately handed him over to Pilate and to the Roman authorities for execution. These are the bigwigs of ancient Israel. These are the bulls of Bashan. These are the guys who carry all the weight and all the influence and all the power. Nobody messes with them. You wouldn't want to mess with that thing, would you? And here's something fascinating about these bulls. In the tradition of bullfighting, we tend to think of bullfighting as having begun in Spain, but bullfighting predates the tradition in Spain. It goes right back to the Middle East and they used to bullfight these bulls, the bulls of Bashan. And what they would do, it wasn't like you see now in a Spanish bullfight where you have a ring around a theater, and the matador stands, and he's waving his little red cloth and teasing the bull. And then the bull charges, and he does the old ole thing. And eventually, if he gets into trouble, what does he do? He leaps over a fence, or somebody drags him, right? Or they send out clowns to distract the bull, over here, over here. And they get the bull off. But in ancient times they used to fight these bulls. I can't imagine fighting this bull. And what they would do is they would find a big tree. A huge big tree. And they would put a square, like a boxing ring around that tree. They would rope it off. And the bull fighter would come out and he would stand with his back to the tree. And he would tease the bull. And of course eventually the bull would get mad, the bull's head would go down and he would go straight at the bullfighter with those horns. And the objective of the bullfighter was to pull away from that at the last moment so that the bull crashed against the tree or got his horn stuck in the tree. Now that my friends is a picture of what the Lord Jesus was doing on Calvary. His back is against the tree. The bigwigs of Israel were out to get him. Their determination was to crush him against that tree. And it looked like they were almost going to succeed. Except they hadn't banked on the resurrection, had they? At the last moment, as it were, he steps out of the way. And the cross upon which they hoped to crush him becomes the instrument of their own damnation. The Bulls of Bashan. Now verse 13 of Psalm 22 pictures these bulls and others. Many bulls have compassed me. Bulls of Bashan have beset me around. They gaped upon me with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. Have you ever seen people when they watch something that is They're just so struck by it. We may call it a jaw-dropping moment. Jaw drops. And when some people looked up at Jesus, their jaws were dropped. They were like, I can't believe what he looks like. It's jaw-dropping. Their mouths are open. Some are mocking, some are spitting, some are hurling abuse. And then in verse 14 we get an indication of how he himself felt. 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 potherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. You know, that's a portrayal of his physical symptoms upon the cross. He's poured out like water. His heart is melting like wax. You know, do you ever have that terrible feeling of when you're really, you know, ill, where you just feel like you're about to collapse, you know, that you're just Melting that your your feet your knees are buckling and and you feel horrible nauseous, you know sickly That's what the Lord Jesus was experiencing. You know, it's hard. It's like wax It's just a terrible feeling that sometimes we've experienced any momentarily, you know, we hear some bad news and or and your heart's just just It's just, well he was like that the whole time on the cross. His heart is crushed and he feels sick and he feels weak and he's wanting to surrender to death in a physical sense. He says, my strength is dried up. He says, I don't have any more strength to give. And he says, it's like a putz herd. A putz herd was a piece of pottery that had been put in a kiln and then had been overheated to where it had cracked and become useless. And he portrays himself as being in the kiln of God's wrath. He's suffering the fire of God's wrath for us. And he says, I'm like a dried up putz herd. He goes on and he says, my tongue cleaveth to my jaws. Do you remember what he said on the cross? I thirst. My tongue cleaveth to my jaws. His mouth was so dry. that his tongue was just stuck there in the roof of his mouth or on the side of his mouth and he could barely move it. And he cries, I thirst. And you remember what they did? They gave him vinegar mixed with gall, a bitter drink. Said there's no mercy for him. And on the cross there he was suffering in that way. Then he comes in verse 16 he says, for dogs have compassed me. The dog in scripture usually refers to the Gentiles. The Jews speak of the Gentiles as dogs. It's not very flattering, is it, considering we are all Gentiles, but that's how they would speak about the Gentile people. And not just any dog, but to make matters worse, it wasn't like it was a nice dog, a poodle or something. It was a scavenger, like a hyena or something like that, some horrible dog. It's not even the kind of dog you'd want to take home with you. Not that I'd ever want to take a dog home with me. But you get the picture. Of course the Lord Jesus, you remember he met the woman who talked about the crumbs falling from the master's table and he referred to her very affectionately as a little puppy dog. He took that same analogy and the term he used in referring to her was not as a horrible scavenging dog but as a family pet. He loved the Gentiles. But the Jewish people thought of the Gentiles as pagans. You know, outside of Israel at this point in time, the world is pagan. They've nothing to offer. They're backward in every sense. Certainly in spiritual terms, they're backward people. And so here the psalmist pulls out this line, for dogs have compassed me. He's referring to those Roman soldiers that surround him at the cross. And notice this tremendous prophecy at the end of verse 16. It says, they pierced my hands and my feet. Now bearing in mind, at the time that David was writing this, if you were going to execute someone in Israel, you would have done it either with a sword, if you were the king, or by stoning, by public stoning, if you were calling upon the judiciary to deal with somebody's wrong. They would stone you to death. Crucifixion was not their chosen method of execution. It was unheard of until Roman times. And so here we are a thousand years B.C. and the psalmist looking down the line sees the Savior upon the cross. He's dying the death of Roman execution and he says they pierced my hands and my feet. And people say who told such a bunch of stories? You think? Some stories. Some stories. Verse 17, he says, I may tell, that is, I may count all my bones. He says, my body's intact. Look in Psalm 34. Psalm 34, verse 20, a similar phrase is given to us. Psalm 34 and verse 20. Speaking of Christ, it says, He keepeth all his bones. I may tell all my bones, I may count them all. He keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken. Now look with me in John's Gospel, chapter 19. John's Gospel, chapter 19, we come to that scene at Calvary. The Sabbath day is approaching. The bulls of Bashan, the chief priests and the scribes and the pharisees, they don't want these guys hanging on crosses on the Sabbath day. They want their bodies removed, they want them buried the same day and dispensed with so as not to interfere with the High Sabbath, with the Passover. And in John chapter 19 verse 31 It says, The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation that bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was a high day, besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, that they might be taken away. Now what does that mean, that their legs might be broken? Well, to die on the cross took hours and hours and hours. I mean, just to die in a few hours was unheard of. And so, you know, those who are biblical archaeologists tell us that you would be nailed through the feet. and that you would have used the peg through your feet, this great nail through your feet, as a support to push yourself up to get a breath. So you're hanging on the cross, and your body weight's all on your arms, and eventually there's pressure put on your chest, and you're finding it difficult to breathe, so you push yourself up and grab a breath. Until you exhausted yourself after a long, long time. So these Jews said, listen, we can't have these guys hanging up there all day. We want you to send some Roman soldiers out there and break their legs. Of course, if they break their legs now, they're going to basically suffocate. They're not going to have the strength to pull up. They're going to going to die fairly quickly. And so these Roman soldiers go out in verse 32. Then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first and of the other, which was crucified with him, the thief on either side. But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was dead. already. They break not his legs. One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came the right blood and water. You know, the Bible got it right again, didn't it? I can tell all my bones. My bones aren't going to be broken that day. I can count my bones. My body's intact. Look at the next verse, Psalm 22, verse 19. Or verse 18, sorry. It says, they part my garments among them. and cast lots upon my vesture. Again if you go back to John 19, just look at exactly what happened there. Now bearing in mind these now are the actions of Roman soldiers. These are not, you know, people say well perhaps the disciples conspired to fulfill these prophecies and made the events fit what they already knew about this Messiah that was to come. But these guys are not disciples. These guys are not Jews. They're pagans. They worship Caesar and other gods. Verse 23 says, Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts to every soldier a part. and also his coat. So that was the day, you were walking to the cross, you know, there was always four soldiers that would accompany every prisoner to the cross. There'd be two at front, two behind, the prisoners in the middle. When they get to the place of execution, the prisoners put to death and they divide among themselves the garments that belonged to the deceased. And that's exactly what they did with Jesus. He had four garments. They took his garments right down to his underwear. They took everything belonging to him. And then they had this one garment that is described here as a garment that was woven from the top throughout. In ancient times this was a new method of manufacturing garments. To be able to make a single garment, a single robe, that was without seam, that didn't have to be patched together or sewn together, was a new development. They had this loom that would do that. And so this was a much-praised possession. We might put it up with the brand names, the top names that people wear today that they might covet. And where Jesus got it from, I don't know. It's of no consequence where he got it from, but he had it, and it was his. And when they took the four pieces of clothing that were regular clothing, they divided them among themselves, they looked at this beautiful garment and they said, well, listen guys, we can't possibly tear this up. We can't split this four ways. We're going to have to... cast lots for it. Let's bet on it. And that's exactly what they did. They cast lots for his garment. In verse 24, they said, therefore, among themselves, let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be that the scripture which might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did." You know, isn't it amazing? Little did those soldiers know that in that moment they were fulfilling a 1,000 year old prophecy. They didn't know the Bible. They couldn't read Hebrew. In fact, to be honest with you, they so despised Judaism and the Jews that even to suggest such a thing to them would have been laughable. We're not that interested in their scriptures. We're here to oppress these people. We're here to keep them down for Rome. Now they knew nothing about the Bible, and yet they fulfilled to the letter David's psalm in verse 18. Verse 19, again appeals From me, O Lord, O my strength, haste thee to help me. Now we come to verse 20. He says, deliver my soul from the sword. Now let's stop there for a moment. From your own knowledge of the scripture, what do you know about the sword? What does the sword symbolize? It's very good. It symbolizes something else. Who does not bear the sword in the end? Government. The sword also is a symbol of government. Now, he says, deliver my soul from the sword, my darling, the Hebrew word is Yahed, which the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures, translates with a very interesting word, monogenes. Monogenes is the same word that is used in John 3.16 that says, for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten. That's monogenes, his only begotten son. And only begotten means one and only, unique, one of a kind son. There is no other son like him. And the psalmist uses this phrase, same word that is translated in the Greek Old Testament, but now in Hebrew, and it means, my darling. And actually in Genesis 22 verse 2, it's used of Isaac as thine own son, a unique son. OK? So here the Lord is seen as someone unique, someone who is the only begotten son and the only begotten of the Father. Now, we've talked about the idea of him calling himself the worm. And the worm speaks about his humiliation and his humanity. But this phrase, my darling, speaks about his dignity and his deity. Now, let's start putting this verse together. Deliver my soul from the sword. We know that the sword is symbolic of government. My darling, only begotten son, thine own son, from the power of the dog. Now, if you don't get this right, I'm going home. The dogs are Gentiles. Now we've already seen dogs, plural, but now it's the dog, singular. Who do you think the dog is? Pallet. Pontius Pallet. Pontius Pallet is the dog. He's the one who's the ruler, at least representing Gentile rulership at that moment in time, who has the last say on Jesus' physical destiny. And of course, he condemns him to die. He washes his hands, but he condemns him to die. You see, it's all there in this psalm. Isn't it amazing? Now, we get to verse 21. Not only is he abandoned by God and abused by men, we come to verse 21 and we see he's afflicted by Satan. Save me from the lion's mouth. That's what the passage says. Save me from the lion's mouth. Did Satan have a part in the crucifixion? Sure he did. The Bible says that Satan entered into Judas and he went out into the night to betray Jesus. Judas was demonically possessed when he did what he did. Satan wanted to see Jesus die. And we know from scripture that he is portrayed as a roaring lion who wanders about the earth, roams the earth, seeking whom he may devour. And certainly in that day, at that hour, the one person he particularly wanted to devour was Jesus Christ. Let's get rid of him. So at Calvary, he thought at last he had devoured God the Son. He betrayed Him to the cross. But you know what he didn't see? He didn't see the last line of this verse. Verse 21 says, For thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. Now, to you and I, that's an unfamiliar phrase. To Western Gentile ears, horns of the unicorn, what in the world is that all about? I have no idea what that's talking about, the horns of the unicorns. But remember this, remember when we studied the tabernacle together? Remember my little tabernacle model, those of you who were here? Tremendous model, I love that model. You remember, you came through the gate of the tabernacle, what was the first thing you saw? Do you recall? The brazen altar, the brazen altar, the big bronze altar that stood in the courtyard of the tabernacle. And do you remember from, if you remember back to that little model on the four corners, there were horns, there were horns. The horns of the unicorns is a reference to the four corners of the brazen altar. So what the Lord is saying here is this. He's saying, save me from the lion's mouth. The devil's out to get me. He says, I call to you from the altar, the horns of the unicorn. Ooh, that makes my hair stand on end. It's not good. While Satan was doing his very worst, God was doing his very best. Well, we get to verse 22, and the whole theme of the psalm changes. The hinge is turned, and we go into a triumphant note. And we're not going to take all of our time now to look at this particular section of the psalm, but just to highlight one or two thoughts. You know, we come to the idea that Jesus is on the altar, verse 21. Was he finished? Was that him done? Was he dead? Is that the end of the story? No, it's not. Three days later, He rises from the dead. He comes out of the grave. What does he do? He declares thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. He appears unto the ladies and unto the disciples and unto five hundred brethren at once. And he appears unto Paul on the road to Damascus. What's he doing? He's declaring the power and the victory of God through him. He's declaring his father's glory through the cross and showing how that he is ultimately the one who defeated sin and death and hell. His triumph is sang in ever-increasing circles. It's almost like dropping a stone into a pond. You can see it rippling out. He says, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. Who's his brethren? The disciples. He said, we'll start with these guys, the disciples. In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. I think that's the 500. He has a bigger group of believers now. I'll praise you in front of them. He's praised to the entire nation of Israel. Now there's a bigger congregation. It's going out into all the world. That's how you get to verse 27. Now we're into the Millennial Kingdom. and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee for the kingdom is the lord and here's another one of those messianic titles he is the governor among the nations he's ruling he's reigning as the one who bought our redemption with his own blood and secured our eternal victory on the cross what a marvelous psalm this is isn't it powerful And next week we'll go to Psalm 69, which is the Psalm of the Trespass Offering, and we'll start thinking about some of the mechanics, if you like, some of the consequences of that day when the Lord Jesus put his back to the cross for us.