I'm sorry, Luke 23-46, we hear Christ echoing what we find in the psalmist, Psalm 31, verse 5. Here we find, into your hands I commit my spirit. And of course, Christ, when He's on the cross, this is exactly the words that He uses. And we should not think that that's by accident or some kind of coincidence. It's simply the case that our Lord Christ was familiar with the Psalms and He was speaking God's Word. We find it again in Psalm 22.1, which is likewise stated in Matthew 27. In Psalm 22.1, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? We know that familiar phrase of Christ and the cross, and yet what it is is a quotation from the psalmist. You can find these likewise when Christ cried out, I am thirsty. It's an echo of what we find in Psalm 69 and Psalm 22, particular verses there. In Psalm 22, 31, we find there the echo of Christ crying out, It is finished. Tetelestai. So Christ Himself is saturated and familiar with the Psalms, also throughout His life. Not only on the cross, but throughout His life. We see him familiar with the Psalms. And Matthew 7.23 says, "...then I will tell you plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers." And yet, that's just a quote from Psalm 6.8. In John 15.25, Christ says, "...they hated Me without reason." Here He's quoting from Psalm 35.19 and 69.4. Also, we find it in Matthew 21.13 where he's citing Psalm 118.26. There in Matthew 21.13, our Lord Christ says, "...it is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it into a den of thieves." So here, all he's doing is quoting from the Psalms. Likewise, you could go on and look at John 13-18 and Matthew 16-26, which likewise are our Lord Christ quoting from the Psalms. So what we see is that throughout His life, Christ was saturated with the Psalms. But today what we want to emphasize and look at is how the Psalms were familiar with Christ. We have just three points this morning that we're looking at. I'll give those to you right up front. Christ has seen the Psalms of righteous declaration. Christ has seen in the penitential Psalms. And Christ has seen and heard in the imprecatory Psalms. We did deal with the imprecatory Psalms in terms of our ability to pray the imprecatory Psalms. But when we get to the third point this morning, we're going to be looking at the idea that in the pregatory Psalms, this is Christ speaking. And so we consider first Christ in the Psalms of righteous declaration. We have passages, a couple I'm giving you, one from Psalm 24. Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord? The question is posed by the psalmist. Or who may stand in this holy place? And then it goes on to describe that person. He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive blessings from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Something similar is done in Psalm 18, and these are just two examples of others that could be given. The Lord rewarded me, the psalmist says, according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands, he has recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me. I was also blameless before him, and I kept myself from my iniquity. Therefore, the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight." Here we note that while David might have been able to pray or say these things in a comparative sense, that still we have to understand that given our understanding of our sin nature and of our sin by habit, which is taught throughout scriptures, there's no way that David could have prayed these righteous declaration psalms in an absolute sense. No man who's at the seat of Adam, no man who's fallen can pray like this, that I'm blameless, that I have not been guilty of sin. So we hear these psalms and we're immediately reminded of our Lord Christ as the one who's ultimately praying these. Yes, perhaps David is praying these proximately and comparatively. He has walked according to God's statutes. He has thought to be blameless. But when we take these passages and consider them absolutely, we know that the only person that these can describe is the Lord Christ. He is the One who can do a sin to God's holy hill because He's been blameless before God. He is the One who has kept sin away from Himself and has perfectly followed God's statutes. And so in these psalms, it is the Lord Christ who is speaking and praying these psalms in an ultimate sense. He is the One who can stand alone in the holy place. He is the One who has the perfectly clean hands and a pure heart. He is the only one who never lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. And he alone can say, I was blameless before God. And so in these righteous declaration psalms that we find periodically throughout the psalms, we're reminded of our Lord Christ. And the good news in all of this is that He who can ascend the holy hill, and He who is blameless, He who kept idols from Himself, the good news is that as we are united to Christ, What is predicated about Christ is therefore can be predicated about us. Because we're in Christ. We've had all this described perfection that we found in those two Psalms that we read. And we can find it elsewhere. All this described perfection has been put to our account. And we are credited with that obedience and that righteousness. And so because of the Lord Christ, we also are a blameless people. We also are a people who have kept our souls from idol. No, not in and of ourselves, but as we are reckoned and accounted as united to Christ. And so this news reminds us of how much gratitude we should have towards our Lord Christ. How much love we should bear towards Him. Because we could not stand before God if it was not for these righteous declarations that are true of our Lord Christ. And so the Psalms preach Christ And even in these incredible righteous decoration psalms, where David is speaking proximately and comparatively of himself, we're reminded that ultimately he speaks of Christ and we're reminded again why our hope is based and rested upon Him. We consider also then Christ in the penitential psalms. There are seven Psalms throughout the book of Psalms that are classically known as the penitential Psalms. Penitential, of course, referring to the word repentance. Psalm 6, 32, Psalm 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143. Now, again, obviously, if we were to break all those down, we could spend several weeks looking at these, but I'm just trying to give a survey of Christ in the Psalms this morning. So those are known as the seven penitential psalms, but there are other snatches that we find again throughout the psalms that speak of repentance. For example, Psalm 69.5, O God, You know my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from You. Psalm 6, which we refer to as one of the seven, O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger, nor chase me in Your displeasure. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak. O Lord, heal me, For my bones are troubled, my soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver me. For in death there is no remembrance of you, in the grave who will give you thanks." So we see these penitential psalms and we ask ourselves, we might well ask ourselves the question, how could our Lord Christ ever pray penitentially? He was 100% man and yet without sin. How is it that we can ascribe or see the Lord Christ in these penitential psalms? We might say, aren't we doing the Lord Christ a disservice by suggesting that He, through David, prayed in such a penitential manner? Wouldn't He ever have to repent of or to beg forgiveness? The only answer that I propose that can suffice is that in these penitential Psalms, the Lord Christ, in His humanity, is identifying with His people. In point of fact, He is so identifying with us that He confesses sin through David as His own. So closely does our Lord Christ identify with us as sinners that He confesses sin in these penitential Psalms. Not for Himself or not because He has sinned against Himself, but because He is identifying with us as His people. We know that Christ is the spotless Lamb of God. And we know that He was at all points tempted like us, yet without sin. We know that because that's what the Scripture declares. But here in the Psalms, we find the sinless God-men confessing sin. Thus does He so closely identify with His people. Such, then, is His tenderness towards us. And such a way Christ demonstrates that He was and is our substitute. So when we read these penitential psalms, we're overwhelmed again by the idea that our Lord Christ, as seen in these penitential psalms, is identifying with His people and confessing sin. Not for His own sake, but for the sake of His people as their substitute. This is why we can rest in Christ, because He has confessed our sins before the Father, and He has taken our judgments and our punishments. It's not without reason that the Holy Spirit could write in the New Testament, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. And as Peter says, Christ suffered as the just for the unjust. So here then, in these penitential Psalms, where we have the crying out of repentance, we see the love of God and the love of His Christ for sinners such as us. So closely does the Lord Christ identify with us that He confesses sins through His son, His lesser son, David. I'm not being creative here or coming up with something that has never been thought before. I offer a couple of quotes from Giants. Jonathan Edwards, the one chap who some have said is the greatest mind America has ever produced, minister in the 18th century, he said here, his elect were from all eternity dear to him as the apple of his eye. He looked upon them so much as himself that he regarded their concerns as his own. And He has even made their guilt as His by a gracious assumption of it to Himself that it might be looked upon as His own through that divine imputation of virtue of which they are treated as innocent while He suffers for them. Another chap named Horn in a 19th century commentary offers, quote, Christ in the day of his passion, standing charged with the sin and guilt of his people, speaks of their sin and guilt as if they were his own, appropriating to himself those debts for which in the capacity of assurity had made himself responsible. And one more, this time from another 19th century gentleman named Olson, writing, I'm particularly impressed with the 5th verse of Psalm 69 where the Lord said, O God, You know my foolishness and my sins are not hidden from Thee. For 2,000 years, Olson says, no man who has had any respect for his intellect dare charge our Lord Jesus with sin. But some might as say, what do you mean when you say our Lord is a speaker in this verse? Just this. The fact that Calvary is not a sham or a mirage is an actual fact. Christ making atonement for sin was a reality. The New Testament declares that He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. As Christ restored that which He took not away, that is, restored to us our righteousness that we never had, so Christ had to take your sins and mine, your foolishness and mine. These sins became such an integral part of Him that He called them My sins. and my foolishness. Our Lord was a substitute for the sinner. He had to take the sinner's place and in so doing, He took upon Himself all the sinner's sin. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. The iniquity of us all was laid upon Christ. He bore our sins in His body on the tree." And then Olson pauses and asks, can you fathom that? When you do, you will understand the mystery of the Gospel. So here are these penitential psalms, and we ask the question, how do we see Christ even in these penitential psalms crying out forgiveness? And the answer to that is that this is our Lord Christ identifying with His people so closely that He confesses their sins. And so we know when we confess our sins, we are heard for the sake of He who confessed our sins for us. Oh, the beauty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In light of this great love for His people, How can we, His people who are convinced of His love, how can we ever violate such a compassion as was demonstrated by the Lord Christ towards us? And so we've looked at these psalms of the righteous declaration of our Lord Christ. And we've seen that the one who can ascend to the holy hill, the one who is blameless, the one who is not lifted up to the soul, to an idol, the one who is not spoken with deceit, we see that that ultimately speaks to the Lord Christ. and we rejoice because we're united to Him, and so what's predicated about Him is predicated about us. We've looked then briefly at this idea of the penitential Psalms where David is confessing his sins. And we've suggested that even here we can see the Lord Christ in the Psalms. And we're reminded of the great theme that we're pursuing both in the Psalms and in the evening, that when we read the Scriptures, we read the Scriptures to find Christ. The Scripture is not first and foremost our story. They're not first and foremost about us and our being good doovies. They're not first and foremost about our resolve to follow Jesus, as important as that is. The Gospels and the Scripture, all of God's Word is first and foremost about how God came near to man and rescued him in Christ. Once we set that as the first and foremost, then we can talk about other things in terms of our following of Him, our obedience. But what has to always be first is the reminder that the Scriptures teach Christ. And when we read the Scriptures, we look for Christ. So we touch on one more instantiation of Christ in the Psalms. And that is to say, looking then thirdly at Christ in the imprecatory Psalms. We spoke, as I said earlier, we spoke some already concerning the ability of God's people to pray the imprecatory prayers. We gave qualifications and we understood that it's not wrong for God's people to desire God's righteousness to be known and to be seen. For Him to clear out the enemy that arises and opposes Him. But we must also say that in the Psalms we find Christ is the one first and foremost praying the imprecatory Psalms. The modern church, I submit, has this vision of an effeminate Jesus. There he is in a poster or an art sketch set against the backdrop of an azure blue sky with fluffy white clouds all around him in a long, flowing white tunic with his shoulder-length hair poofed perfectly. And he's beckoning his people with outstretched hands. Or there He is on the other hand, knocking at the door. Ever the gentle guest. A halo surrounds His head. And you get the sense that the door knocking Jesus is so calm, a door is being wrapped upon by the door knocking Jesus. And we agree that the Lord Christ is gentle and meek and forgiving. But He holds not those qualities without also being God who pursues God's righteousness. He invades against the wicked. He holds the rebellious to account. And in the Psalms, we see not only a penitential Christ, but in the Psalms, through the voice of David, the Lord Christ cries out for the blood of those who would oppose His kingdom and His people. He is not a god. with whom we should trifle. In Psalm 69, for example, we hear the psalmist, let their eyes be darkened so they do not see, and make their loins shake continually. Pour out your indignation upon them and let your wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their dwelling place be desolate. Let no one live in their tents, for they persecute the ones you've struck. And talk of the grief of those you have wounded. Add iniquity to their iniquity. and let them not come unto your righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous." J. H. Webster in his book, The Psalms and Worship, has this to say, David, for example, was the type and spokesman of Christ. And the imprecatory psalms are expressions of the infinite justice of the God-man, of his indignation against wrongdoing, of his compassion for the wrong. They reveal the feelings of his heart and the sentiments of his mind regarding sin. In Psalm 109, the psalmist, let his days be few and let another take his office. I hope that's a little bit familiar to you because the apostles quote these in the book of Acts about Judas. Let his children be faithless and his wife a widow. Let his children continually be vagabonds and beg. Let them seek their bread also from their desolate places. Let the creditor seize all that he has and let strangers plunder his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy to him, nor let there be any favor to his fatherless children. Let the posterity be cut off, and in the generation following, let their name be blotted out." This psalm throughout church history then became known as the Judas Psalm, or the Iscariot Psalm, because it was quoted concerning Judas in the New Testament. Professor Fred Leahy of Belfast, Ireland, wrote concerning Psalm 109, another imprecatory psalm, The view which limits Psalm 109 to David and one of his adversaries is altogether too short-sighted, because it ignores the typical nature of David and his kingdom and overlooks the interpretation of the imprecatory Psalms in the New Testament, where their fulfillment is seen either in the judgment of Judas or in the apostasy of Israel. In the Christian Church, Psalm 109, the one I just read, became known as Psalmus Iscarioticus, the Iscariot Psalm. And so the modern church in the West, I would say, the contemporary church needs to hear again Christ praying these imprecations against those who have set themselves against the Lord and His Anointed. Before we take up these psalms humbly and trembling, we must remember and keep in mind that the Lord Christ has taken up these psalms. He is the one who's praying imprecation against His enemies. Why? Because they resist His kingdom, His authority, His crowned nature as ruler of the universe. The modern contemporary church in the West today needs to be reminded that those with designs to cast off their chains and with the intent to arise to the place of the Most High will be thoroughly cast down. You might ask ourselves, why should we insist that the Christ's pregnant and pregatory prayers must come forward again? Why so insistent on this point? First, because we love the Lord Christ and desire to protect His reputation. A reputation that the wicked want to strolley. But also because we love God's people. And we love those who are yet outside of Christ. We do those that are in rebellion to the Lord Christ no favors. We show them no love if we do not warn them concerning the wrath of the Lamb of God. In point of fact, if we refuse to speak these realities, we so are scorned and hatred of those outside of Christ. It is not the sign of love to tolerate all imaginable sin. It is not a sign of love. It is a sign of hatred and scorn for those that we are tolerating. Love compels us to remember Christ's praying and Precatory Psalms and to thus remind the wicked of the necessity to flee to Christ for safety. The love of Christ and the love for those outside of Christ compels God's servants to take up this hallowed theme, fully aware that we ourselves are only saved from the wrath of God because of the work of the Lord Christ to pay for our sins. We do not present ourselves as those who are somehow perfect. We do not present ourselves to those that are rebellion against God as though somehow we were made of better dirt. We only present ourselves as beggars who ourselves have found bread and want them to find bread as well, but reminding them that they must repent. And so Christ is the One who prays the imprecatory prayers first and foremost. We find here in the Psalms what we find in the book of Revelation then. It's not just these Old Testament Psalms that are meaningful and imprecatory. We find the same Lord Christ presented in the book of Revelation. There in Revelation 19, John can write, Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one except Himself knew. He was clothed, a robe dipped in blood. And His name is called the Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. And out of His mouth goes a sharp sword that with it He should strike down the nations. And He Himself will rule them with an odd rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepresses of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. So the Christ who is praying the imprecatory psalms in His lesser Son, David, in the psalms, is the Christ who is spoken of by John the Revelator in the same cadence, in the same language. And so the church must clearly once again be able to embrace both the idea that Christ is meek and lowly. He has a servant's heart. They must embrace the idea of Christ as He who loves lost sinners, while at the same time understanding that it's not a wit inconsistent with the Christ who prays the imprecatory psalms. By way of conclusion, I quote George Horn. He said, the primitive fathers are unexceptional witnesses to us of this matter of fact, that such a method of expounding the Psalms, that is the method of reading them Christocentrically. He said, built upon the practice of the apostles and their writings and preachings did universally prevail in the church from the beginning. In other words, the way that I'm preaching the Psalms here, the way that I'm encouraging you to read the Psalms is not something that's unique to the 18th, the 17th or 16th century. It goes all the way back to the early church fathers. They're the ones that read the Psalms this way. And so we're just receiving our rich inheritance when we likewise read them in such a fashion. Horn goes on to say, they who ever look to Augustine know that he pursues this plan invariably, treating of the Psalms as proceeding from the mouth of Christ, or of the church, or of both. Consider it as one mystical person. The same is true, he says, of Jerome and Ambrose, Tassadar, Hilary and Prosper. But what is very observable, he goes on to say, is Sertallian, who flourished at the beginning of the third century, he mentions it as if it were then a loud point in the church that almost all the Psalms are spoken in the person of Christ being addressed by the Son to the Father, that is, by the Lord Christ to God. And so as we consider the Psalms, and indeed all the Scriptures, We understand that we must read them as Christ. Find Christ and see Christ in them. Not by artificial means or by somehow putting in some kind of lever to force Him in there where He doesn't belong. But as reading the Bible holistically and naturally, we find Christ. We find Christ in the righteous declarations of the Psalms. We find Christ in the penitential Psalms. And we find Christ praying the imprecatory Psalms. Praise God for Christ who is presented to us in the Psalms. Let's stand for a closing word of prayer. Now God of all grace and mercy, we thank Thee for the Holy Spirit and how He continues to instruct and teach us. We've heard the Gospel in word. Now as we turn to the Gospel in the sacrament, we pray that we might likewise have our faith nurtured have our faith encouraged and grow within because of the work of the Holy Spirit in applying Christ to us. Thank You, Father, for Your people. In Christ's name, Amen.