Psalm 22 - Part 1

Psalm 22 – Part 1  
Luke 24:44-45, Psalm 22

INTRO:
Good morning. It is good to see everybody that is here this morning. I want to encourage you to take out your Bibles and look at the scriptures I mention. If you have any questions about anything I say, I’ll be glad to talk to you about it.

Our text for this morning in Luke is very short, Luke 24:44-45 which says; “44. Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.'' 45. And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” Then Christ goes on to say; “Thus it is written...” Luke tells us that after Jesus rose from the dead He was speaking to His apostles and His disciples, explaining to them that what had been written in the Law of Moses, in the prophets, and psalms, had to be fulfilled.

Last week we took a step back from our look at the Psalms and looked instead at the Law of Moses. Now I want to look at the Psalms and the prophecies about the Christ that we find there. The Psalms were received from the Holy Spirit about a thousand years before the birth, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. In the sermon this morning what I'm going to be doing is preaching Christ crucified from the Psalms.

1 Corinthians 1:23 says; “23. but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24. but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” I have a question for you. What do you consider the most moving account of the crucifixion of the Christ... Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John?

I would answer none of the above. For me the most moving account of the crucifixion of the Christ was written many years before the Christ was crucified in Psalms Chapter 22. The 22nd Psalm really is in two parts. We will look at the first part today and the Lord willing look at the second part next week.

I. Turn with me now to Psalm 22:1 – “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning?” “My God my God why have you forsaken me.” Psalm 22 opens with this statement. We find the same statement being made by Jesus when He is on the cross recorded in Matthew 27:46 – “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?''”
A. There are I believe seven different statements that Jesus says while He's on the cross. This was about the ninth hour. Jesus had been on the cross around six hours. Luke 23:34 records what may be the first thing He said; “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
1. Then while He was still strong enough and even those that were crucified with Him were still strong enough, He was able to talk to the thief on the cross. Jesus tells the thief, “today you will be with me in paradise”
2. The more time that goes by as a person hangs on the cross the more difficult talking becomes. Next scripture records Him saying; “woman behold your son” and then “behold your mother”[para]
B. We are told it is the ninth hour, which is around 3 pm. We are now looking at the close of the crucifixion. The last four statements that Jesus says from the cross are made from this point on. I believe this is probably the very first thing Jesus said in the close the crucifixion and whenever those in the audience heard this, I guarantee you the high priest, priests, Levites, Scribes and Pharisees knew what He said, they knew the scripture. They knew it well.
1. I strongly suspect that when they're hearing this from the cross their mind took them to this particular prophecy because the entire prophecy, the entire psalm is about the Christ and His Kingdom.
2. There are many reasons that I believe the Bible is from God and Jesus Christ is the Son of God but my belief, my faith is strengthened because of the prophecies.
3. We should note that Psalm 22 was given by the Holy Spirit to King David and in this Psalm we have an extremely detailed prophecy about the crucifixion of the Christ given a thousand years before it happens.
4. It is an exquisite detail in prophecy and what we're seeing in Psalm 22 is what the Christ saw from the cross. What the Christ heard from the cross. What the Christ said from the cross. What the Christ thought from the cross. What the Christ felt.
5. In Psalm 22 we are given the crucifixion of the Christ from the viewpoint of the one being crucified.
C. The statement here My God my God why have you forsaken me is said in the close of the crucifixion. There are three others that come after that. I thirst. It is finished. Finally, the last statement Father into your hands I commit my spirit.
1. The first of these is a question but notice the last statement is a prayer of absolute confidence.
2. Sometime people ask the question, “Why is He saying this?” Is He saying this just to get people to think about the Psalm? Or is He actually feeling this and conscious of it?
3. At this point I want to recommend to you that you look at Psalm 22 in conjunction with the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion and study them together.
II. Let’s look again in Psalm 22:1-2 – “... Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning? 2. O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; And in the night season, and am not silent.” That's the continuation of the verse. He's feeling He's not being heard and He's crying to God.
A. Why is it, that He might be feeling that God is not hearing him? The first thing that comes to my mind is He's been on a cross for six hours. He's being crucified.
1. He's been tortured now for six hours and is coming to the close of His life.
2. Isaiah 53:6 - tells us; “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” On the cross all the sins of mankind are being laid on Christ.
3. Second Corinthians 5:21 – “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” At this moment Jesus is experiencing what's happening. The sins of the world, all mankind, are on him. .
B. Before I go any further in the lesson there's something we need to do. We need to slow down and really nail down a very important point here.
1. Why this is happening. Why this man is going through what He's going through.
2. I'll tell you why. I blew it, I’ve sinned, I deserved to go to hell. It is the same for all of us. We have sinned; we deserve to go to hell.
3. That is not what God wants, He loves us, and God doesn’t want us to go to hell. He didn’t want us to be lost so much He was willing to allow His son to go through all of this for us. Jesus was willing to go through everything that He went through because He loves us, and He wants to redeem us.
4. The reason we take the Lord's Supper, to remember this event every week, is so that we can hear God crying out to us loudly, I love you.
5. If we don't get anything from the sermon this morning get this. God loves you. He knows each of us individually; this God who knows the name of every star in the universe certainly can know us. He loves us and He's made the redemption sacrifice at Calvary so our sins can be forgiven.
III. Getting back to Psalm 22 we look at Psalm 22:3-5 – “3. But You are holy, Who inhabit the praises of Israel. 4. Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them. 5. They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed.” Here we see the confidence that is shown because God delivered the children of Israel.
A. When they trusted in God and when they cried to God, God heard them, God delivered them.
1. We see in the context of the prophesy, He's wondering; but I'm not delivered. Why have you forsaken me? Are you going to deliver me? Are you going to hear me?
2. Verse 6 says; “But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised of the people.”
3. I’m going to digress for a moment. The primary cross-reference to Psalm 22 is the suffering servant passages of Isaiah which we have looked at before. Isaiah 53 is the prophecy of the suffering of Christ, the suffering servant.
4. Those passages of the suffering servant don't start in Isaiah 53 verse 1. The prophecy begins back in Isaiah 42 and then interweaves through Isaiah and you find it showing up again in Chapters 45, 49, 52 and then it culminates in chapter 53. The primary cross reference then to Psalms 22 is Isaiah 42 - 53.
5. I hope to look at Isaiah with you at some point. Isaiah is one of the main books of prophecies about the Christ. Yet in the Old Testament, Psalms has more prophecies about the Christ, then Isaiah.
B. Let’s go back to verse 6 now. Notice if you will the phrase, He's a reproach of men, He's despised of the people. Now look at Isaiah 53:3 – “He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” Of Jesus John wrote; “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.”
1. Jesus is on the cross, surrounded by the high priest, the priests, the Scribes, the Pharisees, the leaders of Israel. The people around Him are mocking Him, ridiculing Him.
2. He came into His own and His own rejected him. He is despised. Those around Him at the cross are despising Him. They're rejecting Him.
IV. Now Psalm 22:7-8 – “7. All those who see Me laugh Me to scorn; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 8. "He trusted in the Lord, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!''” Look at the detail of the prophecy! It says they shake the head and notice what they say, He trusted in the Lord let Him rescue Him, let Him deliver Him.
A. That’s the prophecy, now look with me at Matthew 27:39 – “And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads” and in verse 43 – “"He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, 'I am the Son of God.' ''”
B. We see the detail of the prophecy, the exact words My God my God why have you forsaken me. We see the exact detail in the people wagging their heads and saying of Him; He trusted in God let Him deliver Him.
C. That's exactly what was prophesied a thousand years before it was said.
V. Let’s go back to Psalm 22:9-10 – “9. But You are He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust when I was on My mother's breasts. 10. I was cast upon You from birth. From My mother's womb You have been My God.”
A. What kind of relationship did the Christ have with God the Father? From the very beginning He is the son of God. Scripture says how He trusted in God from the very beginning, from the womb.
B. The cross reference to that is Isaiah 49:5 – “The Lord says, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel is gathered to Him (for I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and My God shall be My strength),”
C. Jesus understood from the very beginning who he was and what the purpose for His coming was. He was born into the world to die. The crucifixion is the reason He came into the world. His purpose in coming here was to destroy the works of the devil, that being sin and death. To form a way over that which is separating us from God, He came to destroy, and to save. He understood this from the very beginning.
VI. Psalm 22:11-13 – “11. Be not far from Me, For trouble is near; For there is none to help. 12. Many bulls have surrounded Me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me. 13. They gape at Me with their mouths, As a raging and roaring lion.”
A. Focus for a moment on the bulls and the lion. What he's describing here is the crowd surrounding him.
1. We must remember most of those around the cross are the enemies. They're loving the crucifixion of the Christ. They're reveling in it.
2. We saw earlier the high priest, priests, Pharisees, Scribes, then there's the crowd and the Romans soldiers and the ones that there crucified with Him one to the right and one to the left.
3. Everybody around Him, He seeing them, He's hearing them and all around Him are the enemy. He cries out to God to deliver him.
B. In verse 16 – “For dogs have surrounded Me; The assembly of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet;” Here the third animal is described as dogs. Remember that, bulls, lions, and dogs.
1. He's surrounded by a congregation of wickedness and notice what He says here; they pierced my hands and my feet. This is one of the most amazing prophecies.
2. You have a man being put to death by having his hands and his feet pierced. What is so amazing to me is that scholars tell us that at the point in time Psalms were written crucifixion doesn't even exist in mankind. It was the Medo-Persians who came up with crucifixion and then after centuries the Romans took it and perfected it.
3. This was the most humiliating, torturing form of capital punishment that they had. The way they would kill somebody in crucifixion was by nailing them to a piece of wood, they would nail them in different positions but usually when they were nailed upright they would nail your hands to a cross beam and then nail your feet to the upright.
4. Every time you breathed you had to pull yourself up by the spikes driven through your hands and feet. Every time Jesus took a breath for those six hours He had to pull and push up by those spikes just to exhale and inhale and then let down again. The amazing detail of the prophecy a thousand years before the event of the crucifixion took place and before there was even crucifixion in the world. This is the way the Christ is going to die.
C. His hands and feet are pierced and in verse 17 – “I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me.” His arms are stretched out and you could see His bones. How painful that was and at the same time He is surrounded by the congregation of the wicked. Everybody’s staring at Him making fun of Him and ridiculing Him.
D. John 19:15-16 – “15. But they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!'' Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?'' The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!'' 16. So he delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away.” Crucifixion is the means of a slow, torturing death.
VII. Psalm 22:19-21 – “19. But You, O Lord, do not be far from Me; O My Strength, hasten to help Me! 20. Deliver Me from the sword, My precious life from the power of the dog. 21. Save Me from the lion's mouth And from the horns of the wild oxen! You have answered Me.” I told you earlier to remember the bull, the lion, and the dog? Here they are again. He’s asking for deliverance from the dog, lion, and the bull, from the crowd that is surrounding him.
A. Going back now to Psalm 22:14-15 – “14. I am poured out like water, And all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me. 15. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death.” All his bones are out of joint, He has been pulling Himself up with His arms and pushing Himself up with His legs that are out of joint, nailed to wood, to get another breath. He goes through this over and over and over and over again. Why?
1. Because I sin and you sin, He is going through this so that our sins could be forgiven. He went through all this and yet He could have called legions of angels at any time. He could have stopped the whole thing, but He did not.
2. He was faithful to the point of being obedient to the death of the cross because He loves us and does not want us to go to hell. He loves you.
3. Please listen. If you get nothing else out of this sermon, get this. This is a story of love.
B. Isaiah 52:13-15 says about the Christ; “13. Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. 14. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men; 15. So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider.” In verse 14 what we're talking about is the degree to which the body of Christ was scourged and beaten and crucified.
1. He was scourged by the Roman soldiers before He was crucified.
2. When they would scourge you, they would strap your hands to a post and stretch out your body.
3. Then they would take a whip with stones and metal at the end of the straps and they would beat your back and your legs.
4. Really what is behind this all, behind the crucifixion of the Christ, driving all of this - was Satan, thinking he's going to destroy the Christ.
5. The Roman soldiers scourged him, and Isaiah described it in verse 14 when he wrote; His visage was marred more than any man. They mutilated His body and then nailed Him to the cross. Every strike that came upon His body was so I could be healed, and you could be healed.
6. I regret that it took such a sacrifice. I'm ashamed of my sins but all I know to say to Jesus and to God; is thank you for being willing to make the sacrifice.
7. I don't know about you, but I find myself loving somebody I've never seen. I've never seen Jesus never seen God, but I love Him because I believe it’s true.
C. Psalm 22:15 says My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws. The pain that Jesus experienced is only stated in two words in John 19:28 – “after this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!''”
1. That's the only two words that are even uttered that give you any idea the degree of the pain He's going through.
2. It's only in Psalm 22 that we find out actually what He felt like, what He was experiencing, what He was seeing and hearing, what was going on around him, even what He was thinking. Psalm 22:15 - You have brought Me to the dust of death.
3. This it the way it's put in Isaiah 53:8 – “He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken.” In Psalm 22; you brought me to the dust of death, in Isaiah 53; he was cut off from the land of the living.
4. The suffering servant of Isaiah 53, the Christ in Psalm 22 was going to die. The reason He's going to die is not for anything He’s done wrong, it is for the sins of mankind that the Christ is going to die on the cross.
D. Now Psalm 22:18 – “They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.” Again, we recognize the amazing details here! Prophecy says they are going to take His clothes and cast dice for them to see who's going to get them.
1. That's exactly what they did with the clothes of Jesus. Matthew 27:35 – “Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet: "They divided My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.''”
2. These prophecies in Psalm 22 are given so many years before, yet they are given in exquisite detail of the exact words coming from the mouth of the Christ, of the exact words coming from the mouths of those who were ridiculing and mocking the Christ. The details of what He's seeing, the details of what He's hearing, the details of His experience.

CONCLUSION: As I said the first half of Psalm 22 is all about the crucifixion of the Christ, the pinnacle event in the history of mankind. We've probably heard sermons about the first half of Psalm 22 a number of times, but we do not often consider the last half of the chapter and what it is telling us. If we do not consider it, reading it to see what is being said, we're missing out because the last half has to do with—He's heard me. God has heard me, and God is answering.

The Psalm began with “My God my God why have you forsaken me” but it concludes with; you have heard me, and you have answered, and the answer is you.

God willing, next week we will look at this last part of Psalm 22. It has an important message for us and is something we need to understand.

The answer is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. The answer is the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. The answer is all mankind returning to God through Christ.

It is why He came, why He was born as a man. It was His purpose from the womb to die on the cross. This event as described in Psalms was prophesied a thousand years before it happened, and in Isaiah 750 years before it happened.

In the text in Isaiah, the suffering servant in Isaiah 52, and Psalm 22 are cross-references to each other. Isn't that amazing? They're both written about the same future event.

Jesus said; all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me. That is what we are examining in these lessons.

Understanding the Old Testament will strengthen our faith that the Bible is from God, strengthen our faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Our study of scripture reveals to us the plan that God has for us, has had since before the world was made.

It is why we love God and Jesus so much as we see in this Psalm everything He went through for you and me.

If there's anybody here this morning who is not in Christ, your sin is still separating you from your God. God does not want you to stay in that condition. The Christ who died for you does not want you to be lost. He wants you to turn to him. He wants you to be reconciled to God.

That means the sins must be forgiven. The purpose of the crucifixion was so your sins could be forgiven but now you must obey the gospel. You need to come to understand and believe that Jesus actually is the Christ. The reason He fulfills all the prophecies about the Christ is because He is the Christ.

If you have come to that point of faith and you realize that what happened at Calvary was done for you. He truly was crucified. He was buried and he truly rose from the dead. If you believe this about Jesus come forward and confess that faith and motivated by your faith make the commitment of repentance to follow the word of God by faith in your life. If you're willing to do that we'd be glad to assist you and baptize you into the one body, the kingdom. You'll be baptized into the one body, the church, the kingdom, for the remission of your sins. Your sins can be forgiven by the power of the blood of Christ that was shed on that cross for you.

If you're a child of God and you realize there is sin standing between you and your God deal with it, go straight into it and deal with it. Confess the sin to God, repent of it and turn from it. The blood of the Christ is there for you.
Every sin we are forgiven of is going to be forgiven by the power of the blood of the Christ. If you need to return home to the Father, we will pray for you, we will pray with you, we will do the best we can to encourage you and strengthen you. If you are subject to the gospel call in any way let us know as we stand and sing the song that has been selected.
Invitation song: ??? Reference sermon by: Wayne Fancher